Don’t Blame Anyone
for anything bad that happens in your life or anything good that’s supposed to happen.
P.S: Most of you loved the entries on How to Deepen Your Friendships, Part I & Part II.
“For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it—my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear we would be making progress.” — Epictetus
As I’ve gotten deeper into Stoic practice, I’ve become more certain that how much you’re hurt by an event is about as bad as what you told yourself it meant. Marcus Aurelius once said that things don’t force themselves on us, they’re silent and neutral — it’s we who give them power, it’s we who assign them meaning, it’s we who tell ourselves a story - cast ourselves as powerless. Worry, jealousy, fear — these feelings don’t appear on their own, they grow from how you see the world, what you didn’t expect, what foolish thing you’re doing, which means if you feel angry or scared, it’s on you. And if it’s on you, you can take control because you can’t expect the world to change, but you can choose to stand firm, to look for a solution, to act with grace.
No one can make you jealous. No one can make you anxious. No one can make you depressed. These are the grandchildren of faulty judgments and beliefs. The hard part, and what I want you to do, is feel everything fully — rage, fatigue, grief, longing — and yet refuse to be broken by it. That is the proverbial rock you must become, and it’s not too late to become so. Each challenge, each insult, is an opportunity to practice, it’s your chance to think through the difficulty, to grow stronger, to act with virtue, and to show the best in you. Detachment isn’t easy, it never has been, but what’s the alternative? To let your emotions dominate you?
Blame others and you give away your strength. Take responsibility back, and you will see life afresh - simple, even if not easy to handle. Troubles lose their weight when you stop moaning about them and instead split them apart, and attack them piece by piece, with courage and determination. When you take responsibility for both fault and remedy, you become dangerous in the best way — commanding, prudent, untouchable. The measure of your power is the measure of your attitude.
And yet, don’t confuse responsibility with self-condemnation. You are not the sum of your mistakes. Events are one thing, your character another. People - and you, will sometimes be clumsy with words, selfish, weak in resolve, hurt without meaning to. Let others be. Excuse them. Better yet, help them articulate what they can’t say, expect more from them and show them the right way with kindness, and you’ll disarm their offense. Complaints drain you; they sour your presence and weaken your influence. Far better to act, to repair, to move things forward - because after all is said and done, that is what works.
Life simplifies once you grasp this. At every turn there are only two variables: you, and the situation. That equation is easy to solve. Blame assigns the math to someone else, and with it, your strength. But if you hold yourself to account, if you claim the fault as yours - not always for the cause, but also for how you’re processing the effect - then you also claim the formula to handle it — and with it, control. Control is the power to turn misfortune into a blessing.
So yes — everything is your fault. And that is freedom. To see it this way is to protect your self-respect, to succeed, to keep anger, fear, and envy from taking command. Your work is to fix, to refine, to push forward with better solutions. No, it won’t be easy. But easy never won anything worthy, right? Stoicism calls you to a harder but a richer, more interesting and peaceful path — the one where every challenge is yours to face and every mistake is yours to forgive. You’ll slip, because you’re human. But the path is always there, waiting, the better road, the one where you don’t blame anyone for anything bad that happens in your life or anything good that’s supposed to happen.
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“The measure of your power is the measure of your attitude.” So true!
I agree with you, however I'd still like to beat the crap out of the rapist thar told the police I was harassing him.