There are people in this life that are walled in.
They’re stuck in the parking lot, but they don’t realize it.
Over the wall, this wall that surrounds the parking lot, they can see mountaintops covered in tall trees. They see trails winding through the forest.
They feel the rain.
All around them, in the parking lot, others meander about. Others that are just like them.
They don’t know adventure, they call monotony ‘adversity,’ and they cling to the comfort of being just like all the others.
And it’s all their fault.
Debt. Disease. Unhappiness. Failure.
It’s all your fault.
The wall, the one that surrounds the parking lot, is built of these shameful circumstances. Debt, disease, unhappiness, and failure, among all the other circumstances that afflict a person’s life.
People, maybe you, can’t see through them. You can’t find the way out. Maybe you don’t want to find the way out.
Your trapped feelings, your discontentment with status and life, your boring job and struggling relationships, your lack of fulfillment and drive, your weight and health issues; it’s all your fault.
Your employer doesn’t pay you unfairly. Your childhood didn’t make you fat. Insert any issue you face.
Blame yourself blindly.
“It’s all my fault.”
Blaming yourself blindly is the extreme ownership of your past, your current situation, and most importantly, your future. It is the acceptance of yourself; it is a complete overhaul of self-worth.
🔥Everything you are is your fault🔥
Say it out loud: “Everything I am is my fault.”
You can’t celebrate success on your own accord and then run to brush off failure as “just a part of life” or the result of another’s action.
You can’t blame others for your mounting struggles while crediting yourself for successes.
It’s all your fault.
For some, this is a revolution of thought. No, your professor isn’t a bad teacher. No, that cop isn’t a jerk. No, your boyfriend isn’t ruining your relationship.
Blame yourself blindly.
When you do this, when you unconditionally and wholly accept who you are and what you are as products of your own actions, decisions, and habits, you’re no longer a victim.
A victim to others, to circumstance, to life; you’re not a victim.
This inheritance of blame, from your drug addiction to your obesity to your poor school performance to your financial woes, lifts the veil.
It dismantles your wall.
Suddenly, with all blame secured to your shoulders, your future is your own. You past is your own. What you’re doing right now is your own.
Stop being a victim. Dismantle your wall.
With a conviction this radical, you must leave the parking lot and venture into the mountains.
What does this mean for you?
It means embracing adventure and challenge; it means finding a Wicked Trail because when you’re to blame for all the bad and ugly alongside the great and wonderful, you have to live your life in a way that reflects a desire to steer clear of regret.
Taking massive ownership of yourself, of the person in the mirror, gives a person the conviction to live a life completely separate from culture, from those stuck in the parking lot.
You no longer compare yourself to those, and blame those, who’re climbing the mountains around the parking lot, winding up rugged trails and seeking out adversity, adversity from which you’ve been conditioned to hide from.
You now want to run with them, to call them friends and peers; you want to learn from them!
This 🔥overhaul of self-worth🔥 is not one that brands yourself with negativity or regret. It’s the complete opposite.
It isn’t a dive into contemplation of failure or the shame of living walled in.
It’s an acceptance of state and an acceptance of the control you hold over your future state. Control that you’ve lived without, relinquished to the monotony of wanting to fit in and live aligned with others, and with comfort.
Blame yourself blindly. 👊Be Your Own Culture👊
You’re not contemplating how different they are, how they’ve been dealt a better hand, or how your life would be better if you were in a position like their’s, up there in the mountains.
As your wall crumbles, you look around the parking lot and understand you’re here due to your own decisions and actions. You’re not actually trapped, it only appears this way. All the others, those meandering about in a cowardly stupor, have not taken ownership for their status, their state.
Control of their state is relinquished to fitting in with others, to comfort.
They dwell on hardship, cast blame to the outside world rather than their inner selves, and continue a monotonous cycle of negativity.
“It’s a shame, I guess,” you begin as you take your first step into the forest. “They’re trapped on their own accord.”
You laugh out loud, humored by the congested mass of lifeless individuals you left behind.
Pull down your “Be Your Own Culture” hat and start up the mountain.
Love this one! It has so much meaning for me. Thank you George!
Thanks for reading, Michelle!