It’s Not My Fault I…

“If you weren’t such a good cook I wouldn’t have eaten the entire half of pie”.

 “I wouldn’t have parked in the Handicapped space had I found another one.”

“It’s not my fault I got the speeding ticket, I couldn’t be late for the meeting”.

“I wouldn’t have tossed the burger wrapper out of my car window had it not been so greasy”.

“It’s not my fault I didn’t exercise last week, the weather was cold”.

“It’s not my fault I yelled…you made me angry”.

“It’s not my fault I am gaining weight, it is in my genes”.

And so it goes…on and on and on. We love to blame others for almost every possible thing we can think of. Of course when we play the blame game we are not taking responsibility for our own actions. It is about one of the best ways possible to be unproductive.

The fact is that most of us know we are just kidding ourselves when we do this. We of course are trying to fool others as well. In other words, blaming others for our poor performance is just plain BS, and we know it!

There have likely been times in our life when we are better at catching our BS than others. Because the stakes are pretty high in the aging process, do we really have the luxury to continue with our BS? We are all too familiar with how bad the aging process can be. It can go bad…very bad. For those of us who are interested in positive aging we simply must practice personal accountability.

I am no more responsibility for the bad weather than I am for your behavior. However, I am responsibility for my own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If I eat too much pie this Thanksgiving it is on me. If I don’t exercise, it is on me. I may have inherited my body type from my parents but my calorie intake and expenditure is on me…no one else. We of course know this, but we too often do not practice it.

Now is the time to practice being accountable for our positive aging like never before. After all…yesterday is gone.

Tim Berry