Who are you, and how did you get here...
I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I have ended up in the shoes I am today. Just recently I told someone, "Yes, at one point you were solely a product of your environment, but ever since you left the home it has been your responsibility to choose and create your own environment." A few days later I caught myself telling someone else, " My current circumstances are nothing more than the sum total of all of my mistakes added up." Of course that is not true. If who I am now were honestly only what the culmination of my errors and flaws have created I am certain my life would be much worse than I often portray it as being. But, the point remains that I hate how I often feel like I am of no more value to anyone than what I can do for them next, like all of the appreciation for what I have previously done for people always seems to disappear when the next favor is needed, how others seem to exaggerate my bad qualities and minimize or over look my good ones, and how no matter how firm I try to stand against and avoid environments I view as harmful I feel subject to the social climate around me.
I recently saw a quote of Steven R. Covey's which reminded me of the reoccurring theme my thought patterns have so frequently slipped into recently, and got my wheels spinning. "I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."
Say that an unexplainable anomaly were to occur. One in which an alternate reality, a completely identical mirror copy of our universe and every thing in it were to be created, and at the exact time of the phenomenon taking place in both realities a pedestrian at a crosswalk decides to take the risk of venturing out into the street on a caution sign knowing full well that he probably won't make it to the other side before the motorists get the go ahead to move forward. In one reality a driver changing the radio station looks up, sees the pedestrian before the green light, and waits for the person to finish crossing the road. In the other reality the same driver looks up from changing the station on the radio, sees the light has turned green, steps on the gas and notices the pedestrian after it is too late to avoid a collision.
Is a person solely the product of their own decisions, or aren't we all the products of everyone's decisions. In the hypothetical scenario the same exact decisions made under identical circumstances lead to two different products, but I created the scenario to segway into saying I have seen as much play out in my own life. One of the hard lessons to learn and accept in life is not every option available to one individual will be the same option another individual gets to pick from: no matter how much it is wished such wasn't the case. It is my belief jealousy and envy are hard struggles for many to overcome; because there have been a lot of instances where the fortune bestowed on an individual was just as deserved by someone else who for whatever reason did not get it, and that can be hard to cope with.
At the end of the day, I think how one became the product they are is not what matters, instead what matters is none of us are yet what we will be viewed as when we become finished products, and that we all still have some say in what we will be when that day comes.
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