Responsibility to yourself

My apologies to anyone who's been watching this blog and wondering how I've been doing. It's not that I haven't been writing any blog posts, I have, I've written at least a half a dozen, but the thoughts and feeling that I've written in them have changed so quickly that I abandoned them before I could post them.

The reason for my undecidedness is that I've been doing a lot of soul searching of late, more than usual, and since the subject that's prompted the inward looking concerns someone other than myself, I don't really have the right to air our dirty laundry out in public.

There have been a few things though that I've learned during this time of in depth navel gazing that I feel are universal enough to share.

1. You have no control over how other people feel about you. ... Now this was a hard one for me to realize, because I'm the type that always has to fix things, and I've never been able to go to sleep at night leaving something unresolved.

2. Sometimes you have to let things go to take care of yourself, even if what you are letting go of is something you think you can't live without. ... This one goes with the one above, in fact, it's probably the same thought just looked at a little differently.

3. And this last is a summation of all of it: Your own needs can't be denied and you have the right to see to it that they are met. In fact, it's your responsibility, not anyone else's. But that doesn't mean that the people in your life have no responsibility toward you. If they call themselves your friend or partner, there are certain responsibilities that go along with those proclamations, just like there are if you tell them the same things. Those responsibilities should be amicable to both, but you get to decide yourself if what is offered is something you are willing to accept based on what you needs are from such a relationship.

This may sound cold and selfish, and I'm still having trouble with it, but it does go both ways. You also have to accept that the other has the same right to care for themselves, and the same responsibility to ensure that their own needs are met, just like you do.