The title of this post was from Rocky 6. It’s one of my favorite scenes from the film.
Rocky is telling his son that life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, sometimes crap
happens. But, instead of blaming other people for the bad things in your life,
you just keep moving on and dealing with it yourself. Because losers blame others
for their circumstances and he doesn’t want to believe his son is a loser.
Great scene – great message. No blame – take responsibility for your life and
you’ll figure a way out of the crap. Blame others and you’re doomed to have things
stay crappy because by blaming others you’re giving up control. And, if you give up
control, you’ll wait for outside circumstances to change your life instead of vice-versa.
Like it will just get better when the economy turns around, or it’s those politicians
fault. Or it’s the weather – who can concentrate when it’s so hot, or it’s, well, let’s face
it. You can always blame someone or something when something doesn’t go your way.
But, think about this for a second. If it was the economy, or those politicians, or the weather
then why doesn’t it affect everybody? Why isn’t everyone in a bad way? Because if those things
were really to blame, how could the economy pick which people were going to suffer? So,then if
just a few or a lot of people are doing ok in this economy – then the economy isn’t to blame.
There are always going to be highs and lows to life, rainbows will follow storms, Winters will
melt into Spring. It’s up to you to take responsibility for what is going on in your life that
you don’t like and do something about it. Don’t blame and don’t throw a pity party.
Here’s something interesting.
Don’t wait for change – you have to be the change – and then everything changes.
That may not make sense until you do it.
So, the next time you want to blame some outside circumstance, stop, and think
of something, even a little thing that you could do to change how you respond to
that circumstance.
When you stop blaming it puts you in action. You start looking for solutions instead of sitting
on your butt pointing fingers. And, as we know from school, something set in motion,
will keep on moving, then you build up momentum, and things really start happening.
One idea will lead to another. Not all of them will work, but some will.
I’ll leave you with this thought.
Instead of blaming what was going on in Germany for her situation in her diary,
Anne Frank wrote “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before
starting to improve the world.” Wow. Was she a victim or a heroine? Hmmmmmm.
Go ahead. Try it. And let me know how it works for you.
