Being Responsible for My Life

What does it mean to be responsible? Responsibility is simply the ability to respond. We always have the choice to respond or to react to any situation. Why then, do we so often have various levels of reactions to people, places, and things that we expose ourselves to in our lives? This goes back to our decision to project our past experiences out into and onto the world around us. We see what we choose to see instead of what is really right in front of us. Someone reminds us of someone else from our past or a situation reminds us of another place and time or an object triggers a memory. Projecting our past into the present keeps us from living in the moment. And living in the moment is where we find love, joy, peace, harmony, tenderness, and pure happiness.

Understanding and being aware of our projections and choosing to see past them helps us to decide instead to respond. This decision to respond instead of to react seems very difficult to begin with, but with practice, it gets easier and easier. At first, it takes a lot of willpower and determination, because we are changing our whole perception of our world. We are, in essence, choosing to see through the eyes of love.