“My dad was an alcoholic, that’s why I drink so much.” “I was abused as a child so beating my kids is the only thing I know.” “Everyone at work did it. Why can’t I?” Spare me. Stop blaming everyone else for your current condition & take full responsibility for yourself. People choose to be who they are. All of these poor excuses/justifications you’re making for your wrong doings is only making you appear more weak minded. You don’t choose your family because you’re born into them, however, you make the decisions in who you friends are because that’s the privilege we have. Correct? So why can’t you apply those same decision making aspects into the way you lead your life? Just because you were exposed to alcohol usage, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to become an alcoholic. Just because your father physically abused your mother, doesn’t mean you should ever fall prey to hit a woman. I don’t care what you’ve been through. We have been going through life long enough to learn not to make excuses for our faulty ways. How do you expect to grow if we’re unable to learn from our past? From what we’ve been exposed to? If I continue to blame everyone for where I’ve been, isn’t is just as fair for me to blame myself for where I go? We have a reason to be vulnerable or even angry about our history, but there’s no reason for us to remain where we are. There’s no reason to aimlessly try to follow the footsteps of someone else erroneous behavior.
Last year this time I got into a car accident and totaled my car (which I never broadcast on my website). Cliche enough, that was a rude awakening for me. It made me appreciate what I have more and not complain so much about the things I don’t have. I was on bedrest for 5 days and went right back to work and got me a new car within a week. Because of that near death experience, I am able to appreciate more out of life. I didn’t walk around complaining about what happened or used that as an excuse to hinder me from moving on with my life. I couldn’t breathe properly for a week because of the impact but I didn’t become the victim. I capitalized on it & felt blessed to have the strength to move on. Granted, I shouldn’t have waited that long to feel that way, but who really and truly does when they’re so used to noticing the things they don’t have? When we’re in trouble or is having a bit of trauma in our life, we have a tendency to become spiritual. Or we end up gaining the courage to leave. Sometimes, it takes for us to hit rock bottom in a situation before we realize it was time for us to end it.
You’re the only person responsible for your happiness. One of our main goals in life is to not be dependent on someone else. To take strides within our own paths in a route that we’ve created, on our own, as the years have gone by. Why let someone else conditions place a restriction in your path or on who you are? Yes I understand we’re influenced by at least one person in our lives, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to clone their behavior & follow in their negative footsteps. If my mother’s greatest attribute is always giving a helping hand, yet, her least appealing attribute is her addiction to drugs, which one you think is best to pick up? With that being said, spare me the drama and the tear sheds of whoever, whenever, why ever such & such made you act the way you do. All that tells me is that you’re more weak minded than I thought. Mature people with strong minds gives no excuses for their actions. They embrace their shortcomings and if it affects others, they will try their best to fix it. Stop giving the word “influence” so much power. According to dictionary.com, influence means “To affect the nature, development, or condition of.” Interesting. Looks to me, it can work both ways. Positive & negative. Yet, you chose the negative (otherwise known as the meek) route. Too many times I’ve heard men blame their upbringing or experiences on why they treat women a certain way. I know women do it too but I can only voice my opinion from my personal experiences with men. It’s always because of their mom, dad, ex-girlfriend, what one of their boys said, their weak prostate and etc. I mean, I’m getting so tired of these lame excuses. I really don’t care what you’ve been through to be honest. Granted, scars don’t heal but they are not meant to be the blue print of the rest of your experiences in life. I was raised on getting beatings (or the more politically correct term, spanking) however, the way I raise my daughter is the total opposite of that. Not once have I ever used a belt on her or threatened her physically. And guess what? Her mannerism is outstanding.
Too many people have allowed themselves to remain in situations that are unproductive. All of this blame we place on everyone else for the things we’re unable to do for ourselves are becoming a bit tedious. If you ask me I think it’s all a crock of shit. All this blame being placed on other people is just holding your own life back. While you’re sitting there feeling sorry for yourself because of what someone else did or did not do. Own up to your shit and flip it to something positive. I know for a fact that you know at least one person who was raised a certain way and exposed to certain things and have become the total opposite of what’s been instilled in their mind. Aren’t you one of those people?
As long as you find someone else to blame for anything you are doing, you cannot be held accountable or responsible for your growth or the lack of it.
follow me,
Yeah, really. Everybody has the power to choose whether they want to fuck up their life or not. Nobody’s coercing you into making the wrong decisions. Bah!
Ain’t that the truth. I mean my dad’s an alcoholic, been one most of my life, I don’t drink all day and stay drunk just because my dad does. That’s all the more reason to not do it, just so I’m NOT like him. People fail to realize you’re in charge of your life. You make your own decisions because you choose to for whatever reason.
OMG. I have been reading your posts for years and I have never commented. (I hate to be one of those people that say “I agree”. WTF? Anyway…I digress.) This really spoke to me.
I was sexually, physically, and verbally abused from the time I can remember until I was 11. It’s a fact and not a pity party. I feel like I have to say that last part only because people’s reaction to that statement is normally “poor baby”. Can’t stand that.
I am not someone’s “poor baby”. I was a child who had a horrible childhood, yes. However, I decided at a young age that I will not have a “Ricki Lake” moment or a “Jerry Springer” life. (That tells my age doesn’t it. lol) I don’t sleep around, I respect myself, and I’m successful. You choose your own path. You and only you are responsible for the outcome that is the book of your life.
So thank you Chanel for putting this so eloquently.
This post speaks to me on so many levels. It’s like a smack in the face and meant directly for what I’m personally going through. I’m quite sure no one would care, but I will say that I must take steps to no longer continue to blame other people for my actions. I can admit that I am at times immature, selfish, and weak minded. I’ll own up to it. I guess in my search to find myself, I need to make sure that I’ll no longer play the blame game. I need to woman up and own up to my mistakes, realizing that they are MY mistakes.
Thanks Chanel, your words helped me on my personal discovery.
Break the cycle don’t play the blame game!!! I feel you on that for sure. I’m trying to be my own person. People need to stop using the nature crutch and take responcibility for their actions!
Oh yeah I finally updated. Ive just been so busy.
I couldn’t agree with you more on this post. People do have to take account for their actions and take control of their own lives. I’m so sorry about the car accident. They are so scary, and you never know when something like that will happen. I’m glad that you’re okay!! <3
oh my god. you hit the spot.
this blog was sooooooo good.
i understand completely. people do need to stop blaming what they’ve been exposed to on what they do now.
http://tbx3.rewindd.net/ ………Thought you’d like to see that.
thanks for the heads up.
wow, that chicks website looks coincidently, like yours…
I completely agree with you. People need to stop blaming everybody else and start taking responsibility for their actions. I like the quote at the end of the post.
@Anonymous and Mella: I’m using the same theme Chanel used, edited and has given credit to in the About page (“The current wordpress theme I am using was created by Fadonet, however, it’s been heavily edited by myself.”), and the girl from http://tbx3.rewindd.net is using it as well except she hasn’t given any credit for it. It’s a free WordPress theme, in case you both didn’t know. I could tell it’s the same theme because of the CSS and the 3 icons at the bottom (WordPress, XHTML Validation, and CSS 2.0 Validation) and the funny thing is none of these two sites have validated their XHTML… Anyways, I don’t mean to be rude but it upsets me when I see people blaming others for copying or stealing when they don’t know the real story. Well, they would know if they would at least take the time to look around and realize Chanel didn’t originally make it.
I don’t think anyone’s talking about the actual THEME. It’s how she coded it and edited closely to mine. She took my css. If you notice, I tweeked the hell out of the css and I validated it. The original css is formatted completely different.
Look at yours (which is how the original css came with the theme)- http://totalrapture.net/wp-content/themes/zindi.1.7/zindi/style.css
And look at mine (which is what I changed it to)- http://diaryofchanel.com/wp-content/themes/sleekchanel/sleekchanel/style.css
Now look at hers (which is exactly like mine) – http://tbx3.rewindd.net/wordpress/wp-content/themes/zindi/style.css
It’s evident she swiped my css (which took me 3 hours to format that way).
And if you’re still not convinced, the dumb ass forgot to take out my name in the css: http://diaryofchanel.com/dumbass.bmp
I do agree… too many people are not taking responsibility. No one makes you do anything; you choose to do it.
Chanel, I think you should apply some code to your htaccess to deny people entry from see your sub -categories and their files.
As for editing themes, most freemiums are released under the GPL license. I would not bother replying…if you gave credit to the originator, it is the dumbie at tbx3 that should. Plus Celeb photos are not legal unless permission from regular photographer is given, meaning Natasha has 2 strikes against her.
How can I do that? (adding the htaccess denial).
Lol, I get it now. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I didn’t think she had copied because at first glance it doesn’t look much like yours, but now that you showed me she even kept your name on I’m fully convinced.
I see I’m being talked about.
I haven’t been able to get access to my server in over 36 hours. I was in the process of making a credits page.
So thanks for calling me a dumbass and such.
The Lilo PSD was from another site, which I have yet to give credit to because of my server malfunction.
You’re welcome.
Word. Simple as that. I’ve always lived by that. I’m surrounded by all these things. I’ve just never fell into the bad trend my surroundings were leading. (whoa that so didn’t make sense.. i think) .. I mean some members of my family decided to take the path of drugs. I’ve never touched anything and they even lived with me b/c they got kicked out of their own homes b/c of drugs. I hung out with a group that was known to do devious things. (a gang) But I never followed their steps. Every one has some kind of “will power”. It’s just their decision to use it or not. Great post :cheerful:
Note: I attempted to send this to your email in your ‘about’ page but it didn’t work. I would prefer that you not approve this comment and simply email me in response (krystal@misanthrope.ohsopretty.org) But if you’d like to approve it anyway, that is fine as well.
Chanel:
I wanted to take the time out to send you a quick email. I’ve done the same with a few other people, came across your blog and felt you deserved an email as well.
To begin, I really want to apologize for the names I called you in the past and for how rude and ignorant I was. I was very immature, said words without thinking about the meaning behind them… I mainly only said them to get a rise out of people.
However, I am a changed person. Many people do not believe people are capable of changing but they are… assuming they truly want to change. I’ve spent the past few years traveling, gaining a different and more positive outlook on life and working on myself.
Anyway, the point of this email is just to apologize and hope that you will forgive me for my past.
Thank you.
Krystal
Nicely said. I guess I am one to pity, but as I said on a similar entry Chanel wrote…the ones who play the “blame game” are the ones LOOKING for pity! Those are the ones that I refuse to give it to. It’s ironic isn’t it?! Those who deserve pity, are strong enough not to accept it & to keep on living their life, while some (or most) beg for it! It’s sickening.