100% responsible for My 50%

Being a simple man,
I have a simple notion.
Here we are, you and me, in this relationship, this conversation, this love affair or argument or blog.

It seems to me that you are 50% responsible and I am 50% responsibile for what goes on between us. It is also clear to me that my life works better if I choose to accept 100% responsiblity for my half of the equation.

This means that, even if you deny all and any responsibility for your 50%, and blame me for everything that goes awry, I still don't blame you for what I feel or what I do with my feelings.

Sure, I might get pissed off, angry, hurt, sad, scared, and I might call you to account for what you do or don't do, for your utterances or your silences. I do not deny that I feel sad, angry or scared by your behaviours, but I choose not to life at the effect of you!

Also, whatever my feelings and emotions might be, HOW I express my feelings is still my choice.

No matter how justified I might feel, no matter how wronged or Righteous I feel, no matter how many of my friends agree that I am the wounded one, I still have a choice about how I conduct myself in the aftermath of your abuse or betrayal. If I set out with the clear intent to 'hurt you back', to make you suffer, to get revenge, then how am I different from you? Indeed. your trangression might not have stemmed from a conscious desire to hurt me; my pain might have been a consequence of your weakness, appetites or addicitons.

That is not excuse you or 'let you off the hook' of responsibility, it is to point out the difference between one person wanting another to suffer as an act of revenge and actively setting out to cause pain, and another person whose actions lead to pain.

We choose how we want to be as human beings, as betrayed ex-lovers, etc., and we can choose to rise above it.

Easy? Of course not!

Idealistic? Well, I am idealistic. And why? Because I live in the Real world, in which we can all be mean, spiteful, vicious, vengeful, etc.

In the face of that reality, I choose to believe that we are as capable of doing good as we are of being very, very bad. In the end, if we choose not to accept responsibility, that choice and that attitude is what we bring to the party.

However, in the end, no matter how nice or nasty we are, some one will like us and someone else will loathe us , some will agree others argue - and so it goes - and so must I!

go well