The moment you blame someone else, you hand them the steering wheel.
Most people will do anything to avoid looking in the mirror and admitting the simple truth: they are the reason their life looks the way it does. It’s easier to point at circumstances, timing, parents, systems, anything. Owning your part feels heavier, so people choose the story that hurts less, even if it keeps them stuck.
A friend of mine called me once from a worksite in the Norwegian forest. Late thirties, former rugby prop, built like a wall. He was complaining about how much he hated the job. The wet moss, the rocks, the long walks, the cold. He talked about the forest as if it was fighting him.
The funny thing is he also said it was one of the most beautiful places he’d ever been. Quiet, peaceful, almost unreal. Nature wasn’t the issue. The place was flawless. The problem was that he was carrying thirty kilos too much and hadn’t trained in years. Of course his knees hurt. Of course his back hurt. It wasn’t the forest making his life miserable. It was the body he had neglected.
And that pattern shows up everywhere.
People blame their parents for what they didn’t get, but they never ask whether they’re giving themselves what they need now. They blame “the system” for being unfair, ignoring the fact that someone in the same system is thriving. They blame technology for ruining their focus, as if the phone jumps into their hand on its own. They blame coaches, bosses, partners, genetics.
Different targets, same escape.
Blame feels safe because it moves the weight away from you. But the cost is your power. When everything is someone else’s fault, nothing is in your control. You end up waiting for the world to change when the world was never the problem.
No one is required to love you.
No one is required to help you.
No one is required to make your life better.
Except you.
Responsibility isn’t a burden. It’s a doorway.
The moment you accept it, your options open up. You stop waiting for conditions to improve and start improving yourself. And you don’t begin with heroic changes.
You start small. You make your bed. You do the dishes before they pile up. You take a ten-minute walk instead of scrolling. These tiny actions build a sense of order, and once you feel that order internally, the chaos outside stops controlling you.
When you own the failures, the wins feel different. When you take responsibility for the downs, the ups belong to you, too. That’s where freedom begins. Not from luck or rescue, but from facing yourself honestly and not running from what you see.
But even when you take ownership, one reality stays in place. You don’t control what happens. You control what it means. You control how you respond. You control who you become because of it.
Even then, one truth stays: you don’t control what happens. You control what it means. You control how you respond. You control the story that gets written afterward. That’s where responsibility becomes authorship and where your life finally stops being something that happens to you.
Most problems don’t get solved. They get owned.