Responsibilities

In this episode we are talking about responsibility. Things that happen in life may not always be your choice, but how you deal with them is your responsibility.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello welcome to the show.

Here we are recording in a new studio.

I'm excited.

I'm excited.

Do you like it?

I love it.

This is beautiful.

This is a nice location to record in.

That's actually that that's not fair.

I knew that you liked it.

I just wanted you to say it on the podcast so that other people could hear how nice of a place it is.

It is a nice place.

This is a nice place on my producers just got so it's a it's a wonderful place to record and they were responsible enough to move their lives forward by getting this nice place.

So which brings us into responsibility.

You are the king of segues.

I am not the king.

No Prince.

No like a Duke like a Duke servant.

As you paused I was thinking more like the Joker like in the kingdom.

The jester that's what I meant.

So responsibility.

Yeah let's get back to responsibility.

So we're talking about responsibility.

So basically we're talking about that when things happen to us in our lives it's not necessarily sometimes it's not necessarily our fault what happens to us or we didn't foresee it or we didn't expect it or whatever you know things happen in our lives.

So a lot of times we'll get hung up on looking at these things and you know feeling like a victim and oh I didn't want this to happen or poor me or all that stuff and as soon as something happens it's it's happened.

So the reality of the situation is that it happened.

So you know worrying about why it happened or if it should have happened and all that stuff really doesn't get us anywhere.

It's about taking responsibility on how we react to what happened.

So our reactions are our responsibility.

So we can't we you know we can't always dictate what's going to happen in our lives but we can dictate our responsibility our reaction.

We can take responsibility for our reaction to what happens.

Is that what you're talking about there Ben?

Yeah.

Ben let us into this by the way.

I mean I think that this is something that you've been talking about since the very first episode.

You know I think that in the first episode you you said happiness is your own responsibility.

You know no one's going to do it for you.

No one's going to make you happy.

Nothing else is going to make you happy.

It's your responsibility to do this and it's your responsibility on how you react to the world around you.

And and we've talked about it through a bunch of different podcasts but never really focused on it.

And I was listening to an audio book this past week and they talked a lot about how uncomfortable that is of an idea you know and how people that's maybe one of the biggest spiritual laws or whatever you would call it.

I don't I don't want to use phrases that I don't know what I'm saying but that's one of the that's one of the like tenants of this that are the hardest for someone to grab because and and the author of the book that I was listening to was talking about how you know he posted that on his blog something about responsibilities and that was the one where he got the comments with the most like hate and vitriol back at him.

You don't know what you're talking about.

You've never lived this like you've clearly never dealt with hardship in your life.

This happened to me.

This happened to me.

This happened to me.

Which is defensiveness distraction defensiveness distraction.

And and I thought it made me think a lot about some comments that we've gotten on like don't be a victim you know where you stressed that like you know suffering is is your response to it.

You choose to suffer through something if you reject suffering is optional.

And so I just thought that that would be an interesting thing for you to talk about is the responsibility that we have just to make our own choices in our life despite our circumstances.

Right.

And you know that the it's it's so much easier when something unexpected happens to us or something that we feel we we didn't ask for or something like that to get hung up on that fact and oh I you know I didn't want this to happen and all that.

Yeah you know.

But the thing with the thing with spirituality is that it makes sense.

Like if you pick it apart it makes sense.

The way that we're living in our society does not make sense.

It doesn't you know.

And if you pick it apart it does not make sense.

And this is a good example of that because if you're looking at a situation situation factually and you just go OK well something bad happened to it to me and I have two options.

I either stay focused on the fact that something bad happened to me and it wasn't my fault and I didn't deserve it and poor me.

That's one option.

And then the other option is to focus on how you know OK it did happen to me.

What should my reaction be.

What should I be doing now.

So if those are your two options look at those two and if you if you like you can't explain to me how staying in the victim mode and staying focused on the fact that it wasn't your fault can help you in any way.

It doesn't.

You know there is there is no practical purpose to staying there.

It just does not it doesn't make you feel better.

It doesn't motivate your energy to take any action to change the circumstances.

It doesn't empower you to move forward in your life.

It doesn't bring you joy.

It doesn't.

It enhances your life in zero ways.

It just doesn't make any sense.

So then you look at the other option.

OK well let's not worry about that.

Let's just say OK it's a fact that it did happen.

Now I'm in control of my reaction.

So what what reaction should I have in this situation.

How can I empower myself to either get through this situation to deal with the feelings that arose because of it to get through it to possibly make sure it doesn't happen again to you know when you start looking at things proactively then all of a sudden you start finding ways that the situation can benefit you.

You know and that's why we need to take responsibility for our reactions to things.

You know it's it's funny because like all this stuff when I talk about stuff like this that you know real life stuff that can really help people and and things that many authors have written about and stuff like that it's this is so this has been said in so many ways so many times it's been studied scientifically and proven you know like they have what is it like seven habits of highly successful people or something like that.

You know like these books like if you if you want what somebody has you study them and do what they do.

So you know people have gone out and studied happy people people have gone out and studied successful people and this is the types of things that they have in common when they look at them.

They go well when when things don't go their way they don't get hung up on the fact that they didn't go their way.

Or when unexpected things happen they don't get caught up in unexpected you know thing they just take responsibility for their reaction to it.

You know well okay you know what can I do.

It's the same mentality of you know everybody a lot of people walk around and when there's when the economy is sinking they go oh well you know you you can't start a business you know I'm not going to make I'm not going to make any big progress right now because the economy is you know bottoming out.

We're having issues in the economy and then you've got somebody else over there looking at the economy going oh my god this is a perfect opportunity for me to start my business because I can capitalize on the situation that we're in right now.

So it's it's just you know how you're looking at it and how you're reacting to whatever's happening is is such a it's such an empowering positive thing to be able to do.

So there.

It's all I've got to say about that.

I think that like no matter what the sure like when things happen that are that are outside of your control that are like worldly stuff like the economy and everything like it's easy to to just be upset that it's happening you know gas prices are higher you know like but like how can you what is the responsibility like that you take.

That's a good point Ben you know I like using some real life examples and do you know how many people complain about gas prices.

Everyone yeah all the time.

It's insane I mean I think it's dropped you know just since all the gas prices have dropped you know like when it was when it was four bucks a gallon more people complained about it than when it's two thirty a gallon you know.

When I started driving it was almost five.

Like that right like two year period right in the middle of like the Iraq war and stuff like oh four to seven oh yeah and I mean it's so huge.

So it fluctuates and obviously there's more complaints around the time where where the gas prices are higher and I think that's normal.

But I mean as a general rule I noticed that I would sometimes I would get in those conversations a little I try not to complain so I didn't get into them all that often but every once in a while but my version of it was is I would constantly pay attention to gas prices like constantly whenever I was driving if I drove by a gas station I would pay attention to what that one had for a price and I would make a mental note of the ones who had the lowest prices and I would always go there to get my gas and I realized that I was sometimes I would wait and possibly risk running out of gas or more that was rare but more likely I would drive out of my way you know maybe a few miles nothing crazy but to go get that lower price and I realized which was cents oh yeah yeah I mean generally like a five cents swing is really noticeable enough to catch my attention so five cents on a 12 gallon tank yeah I mean you know that's 70 cents 60 cents right yeah 60 cents yeah so 60 cents I would drive out of my way like so one day I was like 60 cents I'm saving myself I'm worth more than 60 cents like just my time 10 minutes of my time is worth more than 60 cents I'm not going to drive five miles to save 60 cents it's ridiculous but what happens is the reason such a good example is because it's unconscious living we don't slow down enough to understand going okay I'm gonna be late to pick up my kids because I want to save 60 cents or I'm gonna I'm gonna spend a dollar 20 in gas to get to the gas station that saves me 60 cents it doesn't make any sense but we do it unconsciously and when we're in that type of mentality we're not in control of what we're doing is there something that that speaks to this is a little off topic but is there something that that speaks to about winning because if you're going to the gas station with the the five cent difference and you're driving and it would the drive is probably taking a dollar 20 to get there to get out of your way to get the cheaper gas is it is there there's something like rebellious about that sometimes I think but I think feels like you're playing a game with with the gas prices and you're going to beat the system and you feel like going to that gas station is is making you more in control of something or yeah I mean that that there's definitely you know a lot of different reasons why we do this stuff you know and but most of it is unconscious which when we're acting unconsciously when we're doing things that technically don't make sense then we're not being responsible for our reactions to things you know and that's why we run around doing a bunch of things that don't make sense and the rest of society is doing it too like if you went and had a this conversation with 75 percent of society right now they would 75 percent of society would be agreeing with you they would be like I know huh the tax the tax prices or or the weather you know or you know whatever you want to complain about if all that surface conversation that goes on it's you can complain about the weather you can complain about gas prices you can complain about the economy you can complain about this you can complain about that and there's all these acceptable things to complain about that sometimes there's not even any truth to it but we know that we can connect to others I think that that's a lot of it is we feel we really enjoy connecting with people so if we complain about the same thing that's safe so we can you know so we just accept it like it's it's part of life and we never slow down to look at it enough and go my reaction to this situation doesn't make sense so when it happens about the weather and it happens about the gas and it happens about all these other things it starts happening into our regular life and you know that's where we are at this point it's well I think we've always been at this point it's god knows when this started happening I mean probably two thousand years ago but you know we we just we feel like victims and a lot of times too I think another reason that people have fallen into the habit of doing this even though it doesn't make sense is because we're very scared that we're going to intimidate people you know people dull their shine often because they don't want people to think that they feel they're better than them so if you play low and complain then everybody connects with you there and nobody nobody gets you know a little fearful that oh who do they think they are well you know you can't walk into a room and be like oh isn't life great oh I just got my new car you want to see it my car is awesome I love this car everybody's gonna be like who the heck does he think he is oh he's got a new car he thinks it's the best thing in the world and they're gonna try to tear you down because you don't feel they don't feel good about themselves so everybody's scared of that so that's why complaining is an easier way to connect to people because then well doesn't this suck oh yeah sucks good okay he doesn't think he's better than me you know you know oh we're all worried about the same thing we're all playing small in the same way so let's just talk about the crappy stuff the only thing you can really brag about and even this you got to be careful is kids you know you can like we love our children so much we just can't help it sometimes so that's like one thing in society that still bubbles up you know that will brag about our kids but for the most part people do not walk around and I mean you know it's I just use the word brag but I mean that's that's a word that has some negative connotation so be proud of you know people don't walk around discussing good things and what they're proud of and how wonderful things are because they don't want other people to look at them like they think they're better so you know this is this is one of the reasons why we just unconsciously play stay in the victim mode and we don't sit there and go wait a minute me acting like this in this situation does not better me you know like if somebody passes if somebody posted this is ironic a spiritual whatever you want to call it somebody just posted something like this morning or yesterday that I saw on Facebook and they said something their child passed away recently and they said that somebody was was or somebody or many people were making comments to them like how did they deal with that it wasn't that long ago they were like how did you get through that and I don't know this person well but apparently they're dealing with this a lot better than people are used to seeing you know and she explained that you know it was either going to break her it was either going to push her to break or push her towards love and she chose to let it push her towards love and you hear that so little you know I mean losing a loved one is a very difficult situation but we can get through it we can you know we we we can be on the other side but you say something like that in a room full of people generally you'll get attacked just like this guy got attacked when he started talking about responsibility you know you say well you know you can still live a happy healthy loving life even though you lost somebody you don't know what it's like you don't blah blah blah and they're fighting for their right to stay in that victim mentality you know I have um I have two family friends who uh lost actually I have more than this but there are two family friends that lost um younger children uh one of them and they both started um this is like 20 years apart but they both started uh foundations yeah and um the first one their their son was hit by a car he was 12 or 13 yeah and he was just walking to his girlfriend's house and he got hit by a car and they uh made a foundation in his name and they gave scholarships um they've given scholarships for 25 years now or something and um they've uh you know helped out people in the community and stuff and like they're they handled it really well and I'm sure I was really young when it happened so I'm sure it was hard at first oh sure like they they really handled it well and then another family uh when I was just out of high school um lost a daughter to suicide and it was a huge shock she was a she was 14 and no one can really explain why there weren't a ton of signs even yeah and um that family has dedicated their life to mental health awareness wow and they have a gigantic farm and they they've now um they've opened up their farm so that people that are dealing with mental health disorders have like a halfway house yeah where they can come there from the hospital and they can work on the farm and they can wow work with therapists and like resettle them into society before they go back out and um they have like a huge 5k every year like so like these um there is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for the national mental health awareness association or whatever it's called and um which I should know and uh they're just they're they're they've done these great things and um I think that that's taking the responsibility of something awful happened what am I gonna do now right you know and it and it's and what a testament you know what a what a testament to the to their love for that person who passed it's you know that this is another thing that doesn't make sense if you pick it apart you know a lot of people will say no we're supposed to be miserable forever because we lost somebody that we love okay what sense does that make you know so so you your loved one passed on they're on the other side and they're sitting down you know they're they're okay at this point they're safe they're on the other side and they're what looking down at the the people that they love and they're going no like don't like you know why why would somebody and usually when I'm explaining this to somebody I just flip-flop it and I just put them in their shoes I say okay if you died you know if so and I'll put it on me if I die the last thing I want would want to be looking down on from the other side is people who cared about me being miserable that is the last thing that I would want you know I would want them to to be happy in any way and I don't care if they start you know if they start a foundation if that that's beautiful I think I think it's a great way to channel your grief and work through it and I think that that's absolutely wonderful but it but not everybody has to do that whatever they can do to get through it and to get beyond it to some degree you know there's always going to be that spot inside of you that that you're going to miss that person on this plane and I mean I get that it's it's it's not like you need to be 100% exactly like you were before they passed away but you can use it to actually propel you forward and be you know to really take advantage of the life that you have while you're here and do something with it instead of being miserable the whole time it's just that there's no it doesn't make any sense to be miserable you know and that this is I have to throw out the little caveat that you know this is long-term plans here we're not saying you know by no means am I saying that if you lose somebody that you love you're supposed to go you know just party on vacation the next day I mean there's there's grief that you go through there's there's stages of grief that you go through there you know it's going to take some time it's it's not that you snap your fingers and say oh well everything's wonderful because you know this person I love died no that's that's not what we're saying generally when I hear that that's just people trying to is generalizing people generalize well he's you know they're trying to make it black and white no it's not black and white it's gray like everything else so like you do have to go through a grieving process you do have to work through your feelings you do have to face them it is going to be a sad time absolutely but you can channel that into a direction and to help you get through it and get on the other side you know let's take a lighter note let's bring it back down and go into just the responsibilities of you know taking personal responsibility for the improvements that you want to make because that's kind of a lot of what we talk about you know is people that would want to improve their themselves in some way and I think that diets maybe are like one of the one of the big areas where people are not they don't take responsibility for themselves they put it on something else yeah so you know like like people that yo-yo diet and stuff like you're putting it on something else like oh I tried Weight Watchers and it didn't work or I tried Atkins and it worked and then it all came back and like right you know do you well I mean yeah and I think that's you know there's enough information out there nowadays I mean we're in the information age there's enough information you know the fact is if you take in less calories then you're burning you're going to lose weight you know it's and I mean you know there's special circumstances and and but but if you head in the direction of finding your answers you'll find your answers and yeah putting it on something else is you know it's just setting you up for failure because you put it on yeah that didn't work and that didn't work like it was the fault of that it's like no that there's a missing piece and and a lot of times you know the a lot of times what people do is and this is to me this is information especially being a personal trainer people go well you know I lost 20 pounds and I gained it back and I lost 40 pounds I gained it back and and all this stuff and it's like well what you're doing is you're just eating you're going back to the way of eating that you were at that had you gained the weight so they go on a diet they lose 20 or 30 pounds and then they get off the diet and then they gain all that weight back it's like well yeah you I mean this isn't rocket science you went back to the style of eating that had you gained the weight in the first place so that's why you gained it back like it's not it's not because the diet was wrong you know so people blame it on the diet oh these diets don't work because when you get off of them you just gain it all back no that the the diets did what they told you they would do it was just what you did when you got off of it you know a diet doesn't make you gain weight when you get off of it it doesn't have any control over you when it's not in your life and even anything like just not any form of living unconsciously I guess yeah is I have it earlier to mention a story when I was like a senior in high school I went to the doctor for physical and we had a conversation about my weight which has always been an issue and I have not taken responsibility for and he he said like what do you have for lunch or whatever or dinner and I said you know a lot of times I don't eat for long periods of time and then I do and then I eat a lot and then he was like well why and I said well I don't have time you know I have drama rehearsal after school and I have student council and all and he was just like that's crap that's what do you do are you a person do you have a life are you responsible for yourself make time nobody anybody who says that they don't have time like you create your own time you create your own schedule right take responsibility for your own life like yeah if you can't do it with how you're doing it right now then you need to figure out how to do it right you know that's and that's that's a great that's a great segue to you know this is what we're talking about in every area of your life don't walk around saying that that your life is is happening to you you know your your life isn't happening to you it's your responsibility so if you know if you don't have time for something then make it like there's not there you know when when my son was growing up when he was younger I spent a lot of time with him and it was because I made it you know people and and I had to work hard sometimes I had to work with my work schedule for months at one stage to try to figure out how I was going to be able to spend the maximum time with him as I could and all this stuff and it took a lot of effort and there was jobs where I that I could have taken where I could have made more money and I said no because I wasn't going to sacrifice that you know it's prioritizing in life if it's your life you have to prioritize in this day and age a lot of times we walk around using like you know multitasking multitasking and being busy the more we multitask and the busier we are we wear that like a badge of honor you know oh I'm so busy let me tell you how busy I am like that that's not a badge of honor you know tell me how good of a parent you are tell me how you you know you you take responsibility for your life tell me like with my clients life coaching this is maybe a good example any of them will tell you and I make light of this a lot of times with them if one of my clients text me or calls me up and says listen I need to reschedule my life coaching appointment because I'm going to have fun I go awesome let's let's see what we can do now if somebody calls me up and says I need to change my my life coaching appointment because I'm busy I'm like no you have to make this a priority in your life you know don't tell me you're too busy to take care of yourself taking care of yourself needs to be your priority you need to take responsibility for your own life now you want to go out fun that's important that'll feed your soul you want to go on vacation with your family you want to go kayaking you want to go do something that's good and enjoyable I'd be happy to reschedule but I'm not going to reschedule because you're too busy you know that just means your priorities are out of whack as someone who was often late to personal training I can attest that he does do that but if you would like help in being more responsible for your own life how can they get a hold of you they can reach me at Glen Ambrose calm Glen with two ends so yeah find me there and you know we can take some time to really learn how to implement it in your life because sometimes these general conversations I try to get specifics and stuff but until if you're struggling implementing it in your life you know specifically that's what life coaching can help you do so thank you everybody for listening and we'll talk at you soon.

Reviews

Thank u, well put ...enjoyed listening 🦋🌍💃

Really liked this one, all good points, well made. Thanks Glenn and Ben 💜 x

I love it! Going through tough stuff in live is no excuse to be miserable. I have had my share of shit, but the difference is what lens I view life through. Walk through and continue living! Grrrrrreatttttt thoughts to chew on. Crunch, munch, chomp!

GREAT topic! Important food for thought for EVERYONE who has a desire to take more responsibility for helping to CREATE the life they would like to have.
Most things worth having require EFFORT and Change isn’t easy, but often SO worth the hard work.
Being MINDFUL and taking time to really THINK about the daily CHOICES we make can reap wonderful BENEFITS in our life.

Thank you! Insightful. True. Very useful. I was just praying for guidance, got up at 1am with a Covey book randomly to a page talking about proactivity and taking responsibility. Opened the app this morning while making breakfast and randomly opened this lovely talk on the same topic. Very useful. I love the concept of radical responsibility and it got me through a bunch of junk. Realized I was going into victim, which was why I was feeling down a few days. Find the gift, the blessing and heal within, focus on changing me and my attitude, keep going with gratitude and no entitlement. So glad.

You & only you are responsible for you & how you react.

Great lesson! Apply to your life! And enjoy the Benefits! ❤️🦋👍🏻🌈