Life is nothing for sissies. Fate will ALWAYS throw life challenges at you. That IS life. 

This or something similar was once said by the philosopher Seneca. 

I’ve noticed that we humans like to wallow in self-pity. Just last week I met a acquaintance who told me why he believes he is not capable of having a relationship, even at the age of forty. He said the disastrous partnership of his parents brought him to where he is today: not capable of committing to a woman. Self-pity. A diabolical thought process.

The next day, I met a colleague who calls herself a feminist and gave me an epic presentation of how much injustice has been done to women over the last millennia. Self-pity, too, but a collective one.

Self-pity seems to be en vogue. Especially when it comes to work with coaches. It’s called coming to terms with the past. And this refers not only to the individual, but also to whole groups of people. They see themselves as victims of incidents that have been going on for centuries. Occasionally, this is analyzed and evaluated in detail by scientists, psychologists and universities. 

This includes, for example, homosexuals, immigrants, blacks and indigenous people. Do not misunderstand: All this is comprehensible, justifiable and justified. 

My question is the following: does putting a large portion of attention/ energy into this really brings us that much further? And how many centuries should we go back to reappraise certain events? A decade, a century, several centuries?

Self-pity and the victimhood that goes with it is one of the most counterproductive behaviors I think there is in life. 

Self-pity is like a whirlwind that carries us along stronger and stronger the closer we get to it. Once in it, it’s easy to border paranoia: Some people then feel that a group of people, humanity, or even the entire universe is ganging up on them. 

Instead, how about ACCEPTING the adversities and injustices of the past in order to manage them and deal with them better TODAY? What’s the point of rehashing, taking apart our childhood and finding things we would rather have forgotten, but which we can now use to blame for our current situation?

Many people won’t like what I’m about to write, but let’s face it: I can’t really blame my parents alone for certain behaviors and characteristics of my person when I’m over 40. What if it is rather an immature behavior? After all, isn’t there an expiration date for blaming others? And when does personal responsibility for one’s own life begin? And yes, even in criminal law, mitigating circumstances are often thrown into the ring that occurred early in childhood – in many cases, I don’t understand that reasoning. 

Every single one of us has – that’s how I see it – the duty to clean up his own shit in life and if she/he doesn’t do that after a certain level maturity in life, maybe she/he should bear 100% of the responsibility for it?

As simple as this – it is also part of an EMPOWERED lifestyle to me: To show up and bear responsibility without excuses of the past.