Taking Responsibility

It's Friday, I know, I am supposed to write a favourite. Thing is, I have something else on my mind. It's not really horse related, but it's applicable, and it is relevant, and it belongs to both of my blogs. Maybe this tough-love entry is for my benefit more than anybody else's, but hey - maybe someone else can benefit from it, too.

My life has undergone a few drastic changes in the last couple of years - it started with my brain, that part of myself that suddenly decided to find worth and value in myself as a person - the part that realized that if I wanted something to happen, I was going to have to work toward making it happen myself. That doesn't mean that I haven't had help along the way from an excellent support structure but that does mean that I had to start the ball rolling, nobody else could do it for me. And it's a lot easier to get help to get to your final destination if you're already on the journey - don't forget that everybody else is on their own journey and had to find their motivation to get onto that journey on their own, they don't have the energy left to start you out. This falls into the category of "you can really only help those who help themselves".

This also falls into the category of "fall down seven times, get up eight." Even if you have a couple of false starts, it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. They don't write news reports and history books about people who never had the strength to start the journey in the first place. When is the last time you heard about a guy who never waged a war against inequality?

What counts is that you don't let yourself down. If you're not happy with where you are, change it. This doesn't mean that you're going to go from homeless to rockstar in one day (unless, of course, you make it on some reality talent show, of course) - and I think that is the part where many people get frustrated and give up before they even begin. They get overwhelmed by the magnitude of their dream - they neglect to work out a road map so that they can measure their progress and consider anything except the realization of the goal to be failure. Start small. Make the small changes in your life that will add up to the big ones. Set small goals that make up the large goals. Celebrate the progress. Take it one day at a time.

Sometimes the progress is going to be just getting out of bed in the morning, looking yourself in the mirror and smiling, whether you feel like it or not.

Set a big goal today. Track the progress. Tell somebody - share it - make the good things happen for yourself. You deserve it as much as anybody does - maybe more!