I am starting to think I am responsible for all of my problems.Do people bring their own misfortune?

Question

I answered a question earlier and it made me realize something. I think all of my problems in relationships and other things have been caused by my expectations. I actually think I unknowingly yet deliberately get myself into situations that only serve to reinforce my expectations. Are we truly the architects of our own lives only blind to our real power?

Answer 1

Yes, sorry but yes. Think positive and good stuff will happen

Answer 2

I definately think so. I totally feel that people get out of relationships (or anything for that matter) only what they expect.
According to my sociology class, it's called the "self-fulfilling prophecy, in which merely applying a label has the effect of justifying the label." Basically, if somebody tells you they are in a bad mood, then you will percieve everything they do as being relative to their bad mood. Anything that person might do will be seen as done out of anger or in an angry manner. If you tell yourself that you are going to hate an event you are about to attend, you really will because you see the event as horrible (mom wasn't just kidding).

That's why it's important to keep a positive attitude the best you can. I have experienced constantly. Gut instinct may indicate a dreadful evening, but if you talk yourself up against that feeling and tell yourself the evening will be great, it most likely will (you have a better chance anyway)

Answer 3

Yes! We are the authors of our own misfortune. What we expect is what we attract. If you complain that life is awful that bad things happen that people are evil etc then this is what you will get. You are creating it. You will subconsciously be drawn to things/people that will hurt you to reinforce your beliefs.

Here's the good news: now that you've had your epiphany, now that you're aware of your responsibility for your life, you can choose to change it! Think more positively. Try positive affirmations. Focus on the good things in life. Create a better, happier life & get out of negative thought patterns. Do yoga, meditate, read self-help books, go on a pilgrimmage, whatever you need to do to find your zen. You choose to be happy or unhappy. So choose happiness!

You can go through life as a helpless victim feeling like a pawn moved by outside forces. Or you can see yourself as the architect as you put it. You design your life. You build it. You have the power!

Answer 4

Experience is the product of the mind,spirit,conscious thoughts and feelings,and unconscious thoughts and feelings.These together form the reality that you know.You are hardly at the mercy of a reality,therefore,that exists apart from you,or is thrust upon you.You are so intimately connected with the physical events composing your life experience that often you cannot distinguish between the seemingly material occurrences and the thoughts,expectations and desires that gave them birth.....What exists physically first exists in thoughts and feeling.There is no other rule.

Answer 5

Based upon lots of experience, depression and despair can be a learned form of behavior, and hope can end up feeding despair.

You're probably familiar with Pavlov's dog. Pavlov taught a dog to salivate every time it heard a bell by offering it food just after ringing a bell. Imagine what would have happened to the dog if every time Pavlov offered the dog food he beat the dog. The dog would probably either starve to death or eating Pavlov.

Usually, we learn despair in only a few aspects of our life, such as in relationships with people. If an early relationship involved repeatedly being traumatized by someone we loved, and we were helpless to prevent it it reinforces the idea that love will only lead to pain.

I learned this after dealing with years of job-related depression, and only after passing through the Gulf War. I volunteered for the war and expected to suffer extreme depression due to war's inevitable isolation. To my surprise the depression lifted right after I arrived in Saudi, even though my wife and I never expected to me to return,and returned after I came home.

I later realized that the depression had lifted because there was no hope to feed the despair--I wasn't expected to come home.
My insight is summarized in the following narrative poem. Please feel free to pass this on to whomever you please.

D.J. Lachance, Milwaukee, WI



 The Awakening
A Published Narrative Poem
By D.J. Lachance
Copyright 1999 D.J. Lachance All Rights Reserved


Someone gave me a gift the other day; an empty cornucopia. Gathered around a dreamgiver's circle in seaweed-scented sand, my people were in great need, and no longer able to give. We asked the dreamgiver for help and were sent to dream; each waking with keys in our hands.

Gathering again, we found a large box in the midst of the circle, and but one key opened it. Inside was another box, and another key was found to be its mate. Each opened a box which lay further within, until the last key was turned. Inside the smallest box lay the cornucopia.

All fell silent, for the dreamgiver was gone, and we could not see which of us should heft the mystery, or had the right to speak of what was needed.

Lots were cast, and the sun and moon chased each other across the sky many times while each of us in turn rose from the circle, raised our hopes with the cornucopia, and received nothing in return.

The circle remained unbroken, but not those who had joined it, for the winds we had set loose brought us only to despair. We diminished, and I became alone; empty boxes, my only company.

The dreamgiver returned, and asked me to raise the cornucopia once again. I rose with mockery in my eyes, and but for lack of all the keys, would have returned it to where it had been found as I started to leave the circle; hoping to never dream again.

The dreamgiver held me back, and told me that the cornucopia only gave what it was empowered to give. For us, it was a time when nothing was possible, though we held all possibilities in our hands. Only out of emptiness can creation come.

Faded and enslaved by shattered and dying dreams, we had learned to expect only disappointment when anything hopeful came into our lives. Thus, 'twas what we hadlearned of hope that had brought us to despair, but what has been learned can beunlearned.

It was lonely. So I raised the cornucopia again and spoke of the need to undo what had been done.

The End

Answer 6

Karma, the wheel is round, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, what ever you send out comes back 3 fold. A few examples of ideologies on creating your own luck and causing your own downfall. You are the master of your own destiny so you decide (with in reason) what happens in your relationships and life

Answer 7

Yes. There is a quote that says the same thing. "Life is like a mirror." You just have to look at it in a positive light. That's really all. You expect something to suck or go wrong, and hey, it goes exactly like you thought just because you're stuck in that mindset.

Answer 8

Check out "A Guide to Rational Living". Yes most things that we experience in our lives is because we either acted or did not act. And our thoughts, for the most part, create our emotional turmoils.

Answer 9

Most people do cause there own problems, just by their actions and what they do, the thing is they have to learn solve the problems they create.

Answer 10

Did you ever truly think you were not responsible for your own condition? It must be like this for if it were not, what then?

Here is a secret for you... become your condition!

Now see "it" for what "it" is and change "it" at will!

Answer 11

yes!
You only recognize a choice if you are consciously open to it, therefor if you are blind to the patterns you have created within, you will be lead down familiar roads again and again....until you awake and ask for more you will not evolve.