It's Not Them

 "Blame yourself if you have no branches or leaves.  Don't accuse the sun of partiality."  Chinese Proverb

How often do I use my past to find reasons for my faults or shortcomings today?  Because I came from this kind of home or had those kind of parents or were denied this or that privilege or suffered from whatever hardship doesn't give me license to place blame for the way I am.

We live in a culture in which the sense of being wronged is pervasive.  If every misfortune can be blamed on someone else, I'm relieved of the difficult task of examining my own contributory behavior or just accepting the reality that life is and always has been full of adversity.  Most of all, by placing responsibility outside myself I miss out on the healing knowledge that what happens to me isn't nearly as important as the attitude I adopt in response.  The process of nursing blame for past injury distracts me from the essential question of what I need to do NOW to improve my life.  When I check my memories against the versions of others who were also there, I find that my version is often a work of imagination.  This, unfortunately, doesn't stop me from paying it undue attention.  I believe that coming to terms with my past is a process of forgiveness, of letting go, and for me this is simultaneously the simplest and most difficult thing that I have to do regularly.

So much of what I read in spiritual or recovery literature comes back over and over to the idea that I'm responsible for much of what happens to me and when I'm struck by some unseen, unknowable problem or trouble or calamity it's something that happens to all of us.  The idea that I can skate through life pain-free kept me tethered to the bottle and to the pipe.  I can smoke bowls until smoke comes out my ears and I'm still going to get sick and die.  Or hit by a bus.

No matter how I try I have been absolutely unable to change the past.

If you don't like hard rock music don't go to a Metallica concert and then bitch about it afterwards.