Taking responsibility is a choice; nobody can do it for you, and nobody can force you to do it. It is always a conscious choice, because at that moment you take conscious control of a specific part of your life, increasing your sphere of influence.

The amount of influence is directly linked to control and power. Maybe all those words could even be considered as one thing, but for the argument it doesn’t matter; I find it more important that you know what I mean. It’s most unfortunate that what I’m about to talk about are things that we don’t learn in school. We have to learn it from life and some people don’t learn it at all. Most people use it to a certain extend, but don’t understand how it actually works which keeps them from unlocking its true potential.

However, there’s a difference between mental knowledge and actual knowledge. Mental knowledge is what you have in your head, actual knowledge is what you are putting into practice. Needless to say mental knowledge is not worth anything other than being a source of inspiration to get to actual knowledge. It is also something that takes conscious effort and doesn’t happen automatically. In fact there’s nothing that happens automatically, even though at times there seems to be. Everything starts with conscious attitude and anything that happens automatically is a result of that. So for the sake of being in power and taking control, it’s important to realize that there’s nothing until we decide to create something.

So how do we empower ourselves and take control of our lives? By taking responsibility for whatever you want be in charge of. The majority of the people you see walking up and down the street every day take responsibility to a certain degree, like taking a job to be financially independant. But there are very few who take responsibility for their feelings, their relationships, their health in the broadest sense of the word and most importantly: Their happiness.

We live in a matrix in which we project our minds to create the world around us. This is important to understand, because as long as we see ourselves and the world as seperate entities, we won’t be able to have any sort of control over our lives. Perhaps in some moments, but most of the time it’ll be chaos which leaves us to be playball of fate by surrendering ourselves to the mercy of others. That is definitely a situation anyone would rather avoid. To feel alive we have to make our own decisions and be the creators of our dreams.

What you see outside is what is happening inside. So all change starts from within and not the other way around. The outside can definitely help us to become aware of the inside when we realize that the world is but a mirror of who we are. Everything happens for a reason and when we hold our environment responsible for what we experience then we’re putting ourselves out of power to change our experience of life. When we take responsibility everything will feel as if it’s supposed to be, because we’re the ones who made it that.

However, a lot people blame the world for all the things that they’d rather not have in their lives. They blame their environment for their feelings, the quality of their relationships and their state of mind. How often do you hear people complain about others? But who is really responsible for their complaints? And who has the power to take control and change it? That’s right. You’ll know that you’re on the path of empowerment when you meet people who also take responsiblity for their lives, because we attract what we are.

Apart from sheer ignorance, a lot of people don’t want to accept this as truth on a subconscious level, because taking responsibility takes effort; they don’t want to believe that it works like this because it would no longer justify their lazy attitudes. This way of life leaves one out of control and obviously leads to misery. The irony is that it is the mind alone that creates misery, but when one decides to take responsibility and goes into action the mind will no longer be the source of agony because it’ll be engaged in the moment itself.

I’ve been there and done that, so I know all about it. One effective way to deal with a miserable mind is to roll up your sleeves and get busy. Like they said in Art of Living: “Hands busy, head empty, heart full.” When we make the transition from thinking to acting all problems will be replaced with solutions; it’s the path from mental knowledge to actual knowledge. It is in the moment itself that we have the power and resources to act and change, but when we don’t live up to that our mind will be torn between that what is and that what it wants.

We are responsible for everything that happens in our lives and we have the potential to control every part of  it. Nobody is looking for sympathy especially not from oneself. Real love is about strength and real support is about strength. Never support weakness such as self-limiting beliefs for they can only contract your world, limit your possibilities and keep you from realizing your full potential. Don’t listen to those who have those limiting beliefs themselves are projecting them onto you.

Know what you want and do something about it. The creativity and inventiveness of the mind shows in the many different forms and types of excuses that people come up with, but that ability is far better used in doing something that is actually in your best interest. There are so many out there who feel sorry for themselves and it doesn’t amount to anything. It’s an attitude that puts us out of power while waiting for someone else to do something about it. This is the reason why most people are docile and obedient towards their governments; they trade their power for comfort.

Happiness is not something we are born with as a child. What makes children special is that they don’t carry as much emotional luggage as much adults, their minds are open and limitless annd are constantly in the moment. They don’t get stuck in emotional states, but other than that their lives are a mix of pain and pleasure like with everyone else. It takes time and effort to go beyond those emotional states and to train the subconscious to remain equanimous by being like that on a conscious level.

But that’s another story which you can find more about right here. The point is that real happiness is consciously created before it becomes an automated state of mind. Our subconscious mind has enormous capacity to process information; from memorizing and categorizing everything that’s happening in every moment to regulating most of our bodily functions on a macro and micro level. It just needs to be trained, and this is where the conscious mind comes into play. The conscious mind is the master of life and it gets its authority by taking responsibility.

This is why some people seem to have easy lives, because it looks like everything happens automatically. However, behind that is serious effort. Nobody ever got anything for free and everything you get that you didn’t earn is going to be paid for by you eventually. So there’s no choice but to step up and I believe that’s a good thing. One’s capacity to take responsibility is limitless and so is the amount of happiness that comes along with it. It was Siddharta who wanted to solve the problem of suffering for humanity as a whole and one day he awoke under a tree as Buddha.

Another source of inspiration is the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Basically it is an essay that was put together by studying the mindsets and attitudes of the wealthiest individuals in the US in order to uncover the secret behind success so that everyone could have access to that information. It’s definitely worth reading and to me personally it made a lot of sense. Like I said before nothing happens automatically and conscious creation requires constant effort. Obstacles will be there, but I think it’s just a way for the universe to check if you’re determined enough to get it.

The most important in order to gain control over our lives is to realize that we are responsible for every part of our experience, from the smallest to the largest. It is the only way to draw that power onto ourselves that we need to manifest what we want.