Are we responsible for every choice we make?

How can you make a choice that you don’t know you can make?

We are all psychologically imprinted by our genetics, our family environment, our friends, even acquaintances, our individual situations, the media, our exposure to and experiences in life.

Each of us takes the imprint differently as we are all individual. There can be two people experiencing the same situation and they will be imprinted and react differently because of their individuality.

Example: I had parents who were both functional alcoholics. Our life looked great from the outside, success and everything good… but in the house there was distortion. My Father not drinking was a fine man, but when he drank he was verbally abusive.

I saw what it was, and I detested being around alcohol and rarely, if ever, drank. My family members would laugh at me and call me ‘square’ for not drinking. The others drank and joined in the insanity. It repulsed me and I pulled away from it….

I wanted out of the alcoholic dysfunction and swore that I would never marry an alcoholic… that when I got of my parent’s house … my life would be different — no alcoholics!

I married right out of college and it was soon revealed that my husband was an alcoholic.

So, unknown to me,  I made a choice to marry exactly what I didn’t want… because I had been imprinted with the familiarity of the energy of certain behaviors. Therefore, I was drawn to them, because I couldn’t see clearly at that time. I couldn’t see past what had been imprinted on me.

I learned from that experience. Today I can spot an alcoholic at first glance and I walk away. You can’t have a ‘healthy, fulfilling’ relationship with someone who has an addiction because their relationship is first and foremost with their addiction.

But the first choice I made in marriage, hoping to get away from alcoholism, led me back into the horror of it … because of the imprint of my conditioning, I wasn’t able to choose clearly.

Was I alone responsible for choosing what I didn’t want, or did my parents shoulder that responsibility for imprinting this upon me?

In most cases, we choose what we know… and in that choice, we bear the responsibility of it. But we are not always alone in the responsibility for the choice as we are choosing blinded. I ‘thought’ I was choosing differently, but I was choosing the same.

I bore the pain, the trauma and the responsibility that occurred from my blind choice.
But was I alone in the responsibility of my being blind in my choice?

There is a trend, now to ‘blame’ the victim. My parents told me. “You made the choice to marry that loser, we didn’t” Oh really!?  Their imprint upon me helped make that choice for me. Interesting, that they never took their responsibility for their part in my distorted imprint. They, like most alcoholics or those addicted, avoid the responsibility of self-evaluation and put the ‘blame’ on anyone and everyone, but themselves.

We don’t know until we do know.. until, we become aware of what is driving our choices and if we are wise, it is our responsibility to become aware so that we can choose differently.

That is our individual journey in life to ‘respond’, which equals responsibility, to what we can see clearly, when we can and do see it… and to, therefore, grow and to choose differently.

Responsibility – the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something. The state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.

Shirking responsibility has become a national pastime. Our leaders and many in the public eye do it continually… and seem not to learn from mistakes…

I have heard people say. “It’s ‘your choice’ to feel that way. How you feel has nothing to do with me.” Well, that can be a real cop out. It’s a psychological ploy to deny ‘their responsibility’ for their participation in it and some people have taken up this ‘ploy’ to project their lack of responsibility onto their victim and to further victimize.

It’s our responsibility and duty to ourselves to learn from our choices… so that the next time, we can choose differently and better and be able to make the choice that we previously didn’t know we could make…

What do you think?….

Look to the left and make the choice to follow and…