Tag: accountability

Victim or punisher

Posted on by philipdodson

I’ve been both at times. In fact, everyone of us has dabbled at victimhood and punisher. Actually, many seem to switch between the two.

This behaviour keeps us stuck, stuck with judgemental lens on, not necessarily of just other people but more often of ourselves. It keeps fuelling that victim feeling and need to punish others.

It also keeps us from any self-awareness and stops us being truly accountable for our own behaviour.

The only way to stop this cycle is to accept responsibility for what we do, take off the judgemental lens and replace with a lens where the aim is to learn how we can understand others even better and how we can think differently to lead to a different outcome.

The same thinking and behaviour always gets the same results. If we want to move out the pit of victimhood and stop punishing ourselves and others then we have to focus on learning and accountability.

If learning was easy I’d be smart

Posted on by philipdodson

I’ve discovered rather painfully, on more than one occasion in life, that learning for me is tough.

It requires me to understand others and me, which means listening.

It then requires a willingness to change and to realise that the choices that I’ve made and continue to make, have consequences for me and others.

It requires me to leave the right and wrong behind and to be accountable, responsible but free from reproaching me and others.

Learning is one of the hardest things I have to do.

I realised most of all that I can only do it if I want to.

If learning was easy, perhaps I’d be smart, but the struggle of learning makes all that more satisfying and lasting.

On with the struggle, the baby steps to learning pay off if I’m patient.