Who's To Blame?

So, a friend told me about the 3 stages of changing a behavior (awareness-acceptance-action). He noted that I had seemingly skipped over the second step. I didn't quite believe him at first...but he was right. :)

We know we were in a shitty position, and we took action. However, we never really talked through WHY we ended up there - and that the mistakes were ours alone. Not our parents, not our friends, not our genes (lame). Ours.

People (society, the media) like to place the blame. His mother didn't hold him/His father walked out, of course he became a serial killer! She watched too much TV/played too many video games -- now she's certifiable. The blame always needs to be placed, never owned. That's bullshit.

You make your own choices, and as such - you must accept the consequences. Things don't always turn out as planned...and maybe foresight isn't always present when you need it - but that's life. Regretting the past, or looking for places to place the blame are just a waste of energy.

Looking back at anything that was decided consciously - the only person you can blame is yourself. Things like car accidents, random acts of violence, fires...those are out of your control. But, things you CHOSE....well, only you can be held responsible for.

We're both fat because we made bad decisions....we chose to eat and never workout. We chose to eat to feel better...and we chose to lie to ourselves about the damage food was doing. It's easy to overlook that - and hard to forgive yourself for it. I fucked up - I'm fixing it - it was my fault. Who the hell wants to say that? :)

Sometimes, in a rare moment of weakness you would admit you had in fact fucked up -- however you would immediately justify it by saying"I'll fix it later". Oh really? When exactly IS later? A year? 5? 10? Never? Yeah...more like never. Perhaps only when it presents a problem that is directly in front of us and has no way to be avoided. Even then, the "fix" is usually the easiest or cheapest fix...rarely the BEST fix.

I could pinpoint a dozen examples of times when someone I loved (or maybe didn't even like) called me out on my bad behavior. Instead of fixing it - I would internalize my anger for that person and console myself with food. I knew I had a problem, I wanted to fix it...just not now. I have too much to deal with to fix them now.

For now, I've forgiven myself for fucking up....and D has too. We've made mistakes, we're not making them anymore...but we're constantly reminded of them each day.