“Cause and effect is real—for every action there is an equal or greater reaction,” Zebthe3rd.  Continuing on the theme of responsibility and choice.  I continue saying that we are not responsible for anyone but we do have responsibilities to one another.  We do not operate in a bubble.  My history is a testament to the fact that other people and the way they treat each other has a great impact on mental health and the choices we make.  But the truth is other people and their actions don’t change the decisions we have available to us (or at least it is a rare circumstance when someone else’s choice changes our decisions).  Do I believe that it can alter the choice I make?  Yes, it’s possible.  I know it has happened to me where I made a choice based on someone else, but if I look back at every time I’ve done that, I can say without a doubt that my choices, the options available, were not different.  We tend to overthink ourselves…or at least I do…did?  I’m not sure.  But part of healing is learning to be honest about our role in our choices and accepting that the choice is always ours.  We won’t always get what we want and things won’t always turn out exactly as we thought they would (or how we want them to) but how we respond is always up to us. 

The law of cause and effect has been noted as a universal constant in the physical realm since humans came into existence and we started waxing poetically probably even before Aristotle.  With definitions like: A universal law which states all action in the universe produces reactions and will return to you, the source no matter what; or The same cause always produces the same effect and the same effect never arises but from the same cause, it should give us pause.  Humans are crafty creatures and we have learned how to manipulate our environments to get specific results.  We have followed patterns of the universe/nature to yield specific results and we have even learned to rig circumstances in our favor with other people.  This is the reason why we often feel like life happens to us.  We fail to see the correlation of cause and effect of our own decisions.  I don’t mean to imply that we operate blindly thinking we are entitled to whatever we want and if we don’t get it we are somehow victims.  But I do mean to imply that it’s easier to point fingers than it is to accept responsibility for our actions.  As I stated yesterday, we are not responsible for other people but we are responsible to them if we have that type of agreement and understanding.  If we are aware of the specific result of a specific action and we continue to do it expecting different results, that is entirely our own doing.

In order to change the results, we must change the circumstances, the decisions, or the goal.  Any one of those things will alter the yield.  We do not operate in a bubble and the greatest impact of our actions is naturally on ourselves and those closest to us.  If we want to create change, we must start with ourselves.  We have no say in what other people choose.  They may ultimately decide to choose an entirely different path, and it may feel like that was because of our choices—perhaps there was a role in it, because again, we don’t operate in a bubble—but it doesn’t change that the choice to stay on whatever path was an option.  No one else gets to make that decision.  We make the decisions about what choices are available and we all have reasons for choosing what we do—but we need to be ready to accept the result of those choices no matter what.  The simple fact is that we will always get a result and sometimes to get a specific result we have to do a specific action.  We can’t always know the results of every action, but we will always be responsible for them.  So make choices based on who we are, the values we have, and the specific results we are looking for.  If life isn’t reflecting what we want, then ask how we can shift and what cause can we use to create the desired effect…the universe will always respond.