Take Control, Take Responsibility, Be Accountable

We live in this great land of opportunity – America.

The land of fortune where hundreds of thousands of immigrants from across the globe pour in day after day, year after year, to pursue and materialize their dreams.

Yet, quite too often we blame someone else for our flaws and inadequacies.

To list three examples from an endless list of “helpless” situations:

1. You are overweight
   Reason: those tempting cheap fast food restaurants?
2. You are sick 190 days a year
   Reason: your unhealthy genes and poor immune system?
3. You cannot keep a stable job
   Reason: those corporate profit-minded bosses who treat their employees like crap?

Wow! What a sad picture! You have no control?

You cannot have all the fast food restaurants shut down or have them hike their prices!
There’s nothing you can do about your unhealthy genes!
Not to even think about bringing those mean bosses to their senses!

“Alice came to a fork in the road. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’ responded the Cheshire Cat.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.
‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”

-― Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland

You are helpless and have no control of your destiny! Do you believe this?

If you are an average healthy person, you should not.

It is ironic that we often complain about things that we have control over; but do not take the responsibility to take control.

God have given us humans the most awesome gift – the Mind.

With that comes

• The Freedom to Rationalize
• The Power to make own Choices
• The Responsibility to choose Wisely

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

-― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Think about it for a moment. Why did Mother Nature give us, and only us, such an extraordinary gift?

The answer is simple – To Use It.

Use It Wisely, and much of your “blues” will fade away.

The art of using your Mind wisely goes back to the age-old wisdom of Attitude being the key to success.

In the three “helpless” reasons above, if you look at it with an altered Attitude, you can choose to take responsibility to create your cherished reality.

1. You are what you eat. If you are overweight, you need to take control of what and how much you eat. You don’t have to eat it because it costs only a buck! You are too smart to fall prey to those tempting ads.
2. A healthy body is the product of a healthy life style. If you are more ill than well, you need to take control of your life style. Are you exercising enough, are you getting enough rest; if not, how can you.
3. Do you need that job to pay your bills, to earn more experience to get a better one, to afford a better life style? If the answer is “yes” to any of this, think about how you can add value to the organization. You always need to provide value before others can value you – that is the law of nature.

But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”

-― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

You can choose to make a difference for you and for everyone.

“Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope” – Kalidasa