This might not actually be a U/O, but I think this world needs a MASSIVE dose of personal responsibility. Ultimately, you have and make choices that determine what your life looks like no matter what kind of hand you've been dealt and that is on nobody but you. Nobody. And honestly, I would rather be held responsible for the way my life is turning out than being a victim of the world's assholery. That is so much more empowering.
So to our client who left us a crabby voicemail this morning...maybe if you would get your sh*t together and responded to our calls and emails, you wouldn't be pissed off right now. Just a thought.
I have a TV related one. I can't get into Bachelor/Bachelorette. My best friend loves these shows and always tries to get me to watch them with her but I just can't.
I'll play although maybe I'm interpreting the UO a little too broadly.
I agree with almost all of your UO (or not so UO). I agree the world could use some personal responsibility, and that we are all the top influencers of our outcomes. BUT, I disagree that we are the ONLY people responsible for how our lives look. I think the hands we've been dealt matter a lot more than we could imagine, and although it's still up to us to decide how to respond to those forces and do what we can to influence our futures, I don't think everyone has the social mobility to "get out" of a crummy circumstance. Are there people who are resilient and will "rise above" regardless? Absolutely, there are resilient individuals. Will they rise above regardless? Maybe, but I personally think that depends on all sorts of things in their environments (supportive caregivers, support system, education, economics, lack of trauma, etc.). I think it's complicated and there are hundreds of variables that influence where we end up - and our personal responsibility and the hands we've been dealt are the two most important of those, but not the only ones. I personally don't find it empowering at all to tell people who've been traumatized repeatedly or born into severe poverty that they are the only masters of their lives. I also don't think it means they have licenses to become jerks - I just think it's important to acknowledge that any degree of personal responsibility/initiative may not cut it for all people.
That said, in those day-to-day situations like your client, I wholeheartedly agree! For those micro-situations, people absolutely need to step up and own it, and deal with the consequences of their actions.
I’m caught in the between thought of personal responsibility. On one hand yes, the trials and circumstances in your life affect who you are as a person. But *abuse trigger warning*... Its shown that if you were abused and assulted as a child that you are more likely to do the same when you become an adult. We don’t give people who victimize children and significant others a pass because they were victimized themselves, so a lot of times I don’t understand why we give a pass to others in regards to other circumstances. And then you get into the slippery slope of “oh she had this horrible thing happen to her so it’s understandable that she does this, however his trials were not nearly as bad so he should be held personally accountable”.... where do you draw the line on a person’s accountability? How much is too much and then you can morally allow them to place blame elsewhere other than themselves? Then you get into “I’m more of a victim than you so I deserve more sympathy” and it’s a never ending spiral of who had it the hardest and what others who didn’t have it as hard are going to do for those who had it harder than themselves.
I’m a victim of child abuse. What is someone who wasn’t abused as a child going to do for me to make my life easier now? I do believe this has contributed to feelings of anger and lack of control in my life, but I don’t expect anyone to give me a pass for it. It’s my issue to deal with and grow from and I don’t expect anyone to make anything easier for me.
@libbberty It was both broad and narrow. But I agree with you, generally. There are a lot of variables in people's lives and some people have a much harder path than others. But like you said--it isn't a license to be a jerk. I have a family member who is the resilient, rise-above type. I don't know her entire story, but what I know of it is incredible and I admire her so deeply. But you're right about rising above being more attainable when you have a support system.
On a more narrow basis, the day to day dramas and things that happen because you won't adult and get your stuff together? That's different. Connected in a way, but different.
Gosh that's hard. Hubby and his siblings (mostly his brother, his sister spent a lot of her formative years with her dad and so missed out on a lot of the drama) were raised by a parent with physical disabilities and mental illness. She was married five times, some of their stepfathers were extremely abusive. Hubby is one of those strong resilient people who takes everything life gives him and turns it into strength. His brother is... not. You can really see how feeling unwanted as a child has given him some major and long lasting self esteem issues along the way. He has a really weak sense of self, and he lies a lot to try to make people like him. It's sort of pitiful, but he can't really help it. Sometimes I think he doesn't even know he's doing it!
I know that hubby is impatient with him sometimes, he doesn't understand why things affect his brother more than they do him, but I can't see how holding it against someone who just didn't handle trauma as well is productive. It isn't really the brother's fault that he was younger and more strongly effected. It has some serious effects on his life now. A lot of people don't like exaggerators and they find his displays of overconfidence hollow (because they are) and it has hurt him in personal and professional life.
I think there's definitely more to life than your choices, although your choices play a role.
I’m caught in the between thought of personal responsibility. On one hand yes, the trials and circumstances in your life affect who you are as a person. But *abuse trigger warning*... Its shown that if you were abused and assulted as a child that you are more likely to do the same when you become an adult.
Okay, so. This is a thing that people say, but it's one of those times were fore-shortening an idea is twisty and sounds like one thing when it means another. People say this all the time -- and to an abused child (particularly to this abused child), it reads like prophecy and mantra: you're more damaged, and you're hard-wired to hurt a child. But it's not exactly accurate. The most accurate way to say this has already been said elsewhere:
The best available research suggests that 75% or more of those who commit acts of sexual or physical abuse against others were themselves abused as children. However, the research also indicates that: the vast majority of children who are sexually abused do not go on to abuse others.
Hang with me for a second here, because I'm not arguing from a place that assumes you meant anything else by what you said. I'm rather arguing on the off-chance that someone else is cruising through here and needs to hear that they are not hard-wired to abuse.
Because believing that I was fucked me up for a long time, and in terms of mental health issues, I spent a long time steeped in my own depression, convinced that I was an abusive time-bomb that couldn't be diffused. It was honestly the scariest and most difficult time of my life as a mother, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. (I mean, there were a lot of bad things going on there, and it's not like it was the only thing, but it was a Big and Terrifying thing. And being abused will forever color how safe I feel letting my kid out into the world.)
So hi, all you parents who were abused as children who have heard this statistic in a vacuum and let it eat at them. It's not that simple, and you're not fighting any sort of predestined abuse hardwired into you by a childhood of abuse.
Like, to veer off of the abuse angle and just on the topic of personal responsibility, I also fall in the middle: I think people are unwilling in general to take responsibility for things they have actually done wrong. Like, my dad is not a bad worker, but I swear every turn that didn't go right in his career is someone else's fault. I've never heard him say, even, "Our styles of work didn't jive well together." or "I took a stupid risk, it wasn't the right move, and that's why I'm in this situation now." And he's not alone there; it's a modern thing, I think, to blame someone else for your inability to deal with an issue or what have you. Drives me bonkers, and it's led me to trying hard to both take responsibility for myself in adulthood, without taking on the responsibility that others should take.
However, I think that's a vastly different issue from issues of classism in America and the restriction of opportunities available to those who either face systemic barriers to those opportunities or those who aren't wealthy enough to hopscotch the rigamarole. A lot of high achieving individuals have a fair dose of luck, and often some exceptionality that helps them become more socially mobile. Holding an average poor person up to an exceptional poor person and expecting the same results is unrealistic. It doesn't matter if that exceptionality was intelligence or resilience or anything else; one of them was able to get through the hoops because they were exceptional, not because they figured out the system. The system loves exceptional people, even though most of us are average.
GraceUponGrace09
member
Re: UO 9/28
So to our client who left us a crabby voicemail this morning...maybe if you would get your sh*t together and responded to our calls and emails, you wouldn't be pissed off right now. Just a thought.
I agree with almost all of your UO (or not so UO). I agree the world could use some personal responsibility, and that we are all the top influencers of our outcomes. BUT, I disagree that we are the ONLY people responsible for how our lives look. I think the hands we've been dealt matter a lot more than we could imagine, and although it's still up to us to decide how to respond to those forces and do what we can to influence our futures, I don't think everyone has the social mobility to "get out" of a crummy circumstance. Are there people who are resilient and will "rise above" regardless? Absolutely, there are resilient individuals. Will they rise above regardless? Maybe, but I personally think that depends on all sorts of things in their environments (supportive caregivers, support system, education, economics, lack of trauma, etc.). I think it's complicated and there are hundreds of variables that influence where we end up - and our personal responsibility and the hands we've been dealt are the two most important of those, but not the only ones. I personally don't find it empowering at all to tell people who've been traumatized repeatedly or born into severe poverty that they are the only masters of their lives. I also don't think it means they have licenses to become jerks - I just think it's important to acknowledge that any degree of personal responsibility/initiative may not cut it for all people.
That said, in those day-to-day situations like your client, I wholeheartedly agree! For those micro-situations, people absolutely need to step up and own it, and deal with the consequences of their actions.
On one hand yes, the trials and circumstances in your life affect who you are as a person. But *abuse trigger warning*...
Its shown that if you were abused and assulted as a child that you are more likely to do the same when you become an adult. We don’t give people who victimize children and significant others a pass because they were victimized themselves, so a lot of times I don’t understand why we give a pass to others in regards to other circumstances. And then you get into the slippery slope of “oh she had this horrible thing happen to her so it’s understandable that she does this, however his trials were not nearly as bad so he should be held personally accountable”.... where do you draw the line on a person’s accountability? How much is too much and then you can morally allow them to place blame elsewhere other than themselves? Then you get into “I’m more of a victim than you so I deserve more sympathy” and it’s a never ending spiral of who had it the hardest and what others who didn’t have it as hard are going to do for those who had it harder than themselves.
I’m a victim of child abuse. What is someone who wasn’t abused as a child going to do for me to make my life easier now? I do believe this has contributed to feelings of anger and lack of control in my life, but I don’t expect anyone to give me a pass for it. It’s my issue to deal with and grow from and I don’t expect anyone to make anything easier for me.
On a more narrow basis, the day to day dramas and things that happen because you won't adult and get your stuff together? That's different. Connected in a way, but different.
I know that hubby is impatient with him sometimes, he doesn't understand why things affect his brother more than they do him, but I can't see how holding it against someone who just didn't handle trauma as well is productive. It isn't really the brother's fault that he was younger and more strongly effected. It has some serious effects on his life now. A lot of people don't like exaggerators and they find his displays of overconfidence hollow (because they are) and it has hurt him in personal and professional life.
I think there's definitely more to life than your choices, although your choices play a role.
I HATE bras right now. But would feel so weird going without considering I’m at a DDD right now.
Hang with me for a second here, because I'm not arguing from a place that assumes you meant anything else by what you said. I'm rather arguing on the off-chance that someone else is cruising through here and needs to hear that they are not hard-wired to abuse.
Because believing that I was fucked me up for a long time, and in terms of mental health issues, I spent a long time steeped in my own depression, convinced that I was an abusive time-bomb that couldn't be diffused. It was honestly the scariest and most difficult time of my life as a mother, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. (I mean, there were a lot of bad things going on there, and it's not like it was the only thing, but it was a Big and Terrifying thing. And being abused will forever color how safe I feel letting my kid out into the world.)
So hi, all you parents who were abused as children who have heard this statistic in a vacuum and let it eat at them. It's not that simple, and you're not fighting any sort of predestined abuse hardwired into you by a childhood of abuse.
(Here's another link that's harder to read but has lots of statistics, if that's your thing.)
However, I think that's a vastly different issue from issues of classism in America and the restriction of opportunities available to those who either face systemic barriers to those opportunities or those who aren't wealthy enough to hopscotch the rigamarole. A lot of high achieving individuals have a fair dose of luck, and often some exceptionality that helps them become more socially mobile. Holding an average poor person up to an exceptional poor person and expecting the same results is unrealistic. It doesn't matter if that exceptionality was intelligence or resilience or anything else; one of them was able to get through the hoops because they were exceptional, not because they figured out the system. The system loves exceptional people, even though most of us are average.