Taking Full Responsibility
Extreme Ownership, Part 1
Accepting blame for everything that went wrong during my time in Texas, and acknowledging everything I did wrong, including the lies I had believed in so strongly (pretty much all of them, I had deceived myself into believing), has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, not to mention giving myself grace after such a tremendous blow to my ego.
I felt so strongly — and I cannot stress this enough — that I was doing everything correctly, especially since I was acting according to my wrongful interpretations of the Bible and to the training I had received from business leaders, and that the reasons for all of my failures were because of other people with bottom-of-the-barrel character and because of circumstantial happenstances that were caused by things outside of my control.
It is true that external circumstances and very bad people factored into things, and there were times when I simply didn’t know better, and others were frankly, I should have known better. Avoiding self-loathing has been difficult too, but it’s just the devil’s way of deceiving me into believing that I’m not worth anything, which of course isn’t true, not due to anything that I’ve done, but due to the fact that the God of the universe gave enough of a s^%# about me to die on a cross for me.
But I am still 100% responsible for everything in my life.
This is exactly what Adolf Hitler did, too. In his mind, seeking a career in the arts in Vienna, he probably thought he was doing everything right. He certainly had a high opinion of himself and thought he was better than most people around him, a delusion that he developed from a young age. So of course when he didn’t get the position (in the arts) he deserved and in fact became homeless and later, a soldier of the defeated Germany in the First World War, he blamed others for all his suffering (and the suffering of all Germans by extension), which was of course the Jews and the communists.(2)
I have read Extreme Ownership twice in my life so far, but it’s been a few years since the previous reading and my actions following February 27 this year, the day my police application was declined even after passing all the tests, have proven that I hadn’t applied its wisdom very well or when I did, it didn’t last.
So I’m going to put on the Shoes of Peace and take initiative and ownership of my life, instead of waiting for the wisdom and opportunities to come to me.
Furthermore, I’d like to express some gratitude.
I’ve been studying more history lately, specifically the Vietnam Conflict, the Angolan Civil War, and the War of 1812. I also stumbled upon some videos of an American visiting India and of some crazy stuff happening around the globe.
In the UK, France, Spain, and Los Angeles, mobs of migrants and lower-class folks are causing tons of violence because, well… they can get away with it, and in many cases actually benefit from their statuses as migrants, even if they’re illegal.
Obviously, you’ve got Putin’s war in Ukraine, and it does look like the United States will be resuming aid to them, but time will tell. I’ve seen footage of Ukrainian soldiers fighting too, and it’s a huge risk day in and day out. The Russian invaders often take shelter in exterior basements of abandoned Ukrainian homes, and going down into them to clear them is… well, risky. The Ukrainians usually have to resort to throwing grenades in there.
Thailand and Cambodia are up in arms. I think a lot of westerners attribute that to colonization, but locals say that no, they’ve always disliked each other, just like many of the ethnic tribes of Africa.
Which is happening too, like in the Congo (DR) and South Sudan. The civil unrest is all because of multiple armed political groups fighting for control of the country and its riches. South Sudan has a bunch of oil fields and eastern Congo has a bunch of jewel mines. Their natural resources are incredibly valuable, but totally meaningless if the nations whose borders they are within are constantly fighting themselves.
Of course, you’ve got the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been happening for ages with yo-yoing levels of violence, the most recent of which has been pretty brutal, to say the least. Israel was at war with Iran too, for twelve days.
India is a country we think of as colorful, cultured, and spiritual, but the videos I saw showed that no, it’s quite polluted and dirty with a significant danger of scammers. It does have its culture yes, but man…
My point is, yes, I suffered in the last four years. Yes, I failed and failed. Yes, I’m unemployed at the moment.
But I am safe and do have a plan for my future as an English teacher in Japan and as a writer. I live in a clean and safe area where the worry of scammers, civil unrest, and mobs of violent looters aren’t a concern.
So I am grateful.
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Sources:
Willink, J., Babin, L., 2015, Extreme Ownership, St. Martin’s Press
“Hitler - OverSimplified (Part1),” OverSimplified, YouTube.
All referenced scripture is from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
No AI was used in the making of this article. Cheers.