We were talking over coffee and disagreed; I did not know much about the subject of the conversation, but with my secret mental skills, I was certain I was right.
I was being ignorant and intransigent; a habit of mine.
My friend said, “you are so damn stubborn.”
I replied, “I know, I got that from my parents.”
“Give it a rest,” my friend rejoined, “you’re 35 years old, there is nothing that you got from your parents that you haven’t chosen to keep. Quit blaming your poor innocent parents for all your sins. You are responsible for whatever you are now.”
He was right of course. I might have some examples of being stubborn, but I had adopted and accepted stubbornness and built it into my life. I am an adult and everything you see, I have chosen. Not always consciously, but I have chosen.
And in many cases I have enhanced the defects after adopting them. Intransigent stubbornness was one good example of my ability to enlarge a character defect, to make it a bigger more offensive defect, than the original.
So, I have now stopped blaming my parents. I not sure they are innocent, but I am now sure that they are not guilty.
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How often I have heard that our ethnicity determines a character defect: stubborn German, hard drinking Irish etc as though it is predestined.
I now choose to honestly look for defects that I have attributed to my parents, or any other reason for justifying my behavior today.
Thank you for this!
Thanks, Julie; glad to have met you on the road of happy destiny.