When Did We Lose the Courage to Face Ourselves?

Lately, I've been thinking about most of the things happening in our lives are connected to our choices, our actions, our decisions, and yes, sometimes our regrets. Yet we spend so much time blaming fate, circumstances, the environment, bad timing, or things that seem outside our control.

And to be fair, not everything is in our hands.

But more often than not, the question isn't whether we had complete control.

"The question is whether we used the control we did have."

Human beings have always found ways forward. Early humans turned stones into spears. They survived harsh winters, famine, disease, and uncertainty. They didn't have technology, access to information, or even a guarantee that they would survive the next season.

Yet somehow they adapted.

Today, we have access to knowledge, technology, communication, education, and opportunities that most of human history never had. Knowledge is available within seconds. We can communicate across continents instantly. We can learn almost any skill without leaving our rooms.

Yes, our problems have become more complicated. But our resources have grown even faster.

So why are we so afraid to start?

Why do we spend so much time looking for explanations and so little time looking for solutions?

Maybe somewhere along the way, we became afraid of responsibility.

Not responsibility in the sense of guilt. Responsibility in the sense of ownership.

The ownership of our own lives.

When did we start to become wimps?

"We forgot how important our goals were to us. We lost the sense of working especially hard. We lost the sense of how it would feel to step just a little outside of our comfort zone."

Nowadays including myself I realized that

I trapped in endless "what ifs."

What if I had gone there sooner?

What if I had met those people earlier?

What if I had made different decisions?

What if I had known then what I know now?

Would I be a better version of myself?

Maybe.

would 13 year old İrem would be impressed by me?

I guess not quite much she was always hard to impress

But after spending enough time replaying history in my head, I realized that

Nobody was actually forcing me.

There were suggestions. Expectations. Opinions. Some paths were more encouraged than others.

But at the end of the day, I was still holding the cards.

maybe I was the one that didn’t create the environment where opportunities would come.

Now looking around and thinking, “what if” not only it does not help anything, but it also diminishes your self-respect, self-worth, and every single self-perception you have and will have. Thinking in a race full of perfect opponents (life is not a race though, don't get me wrong) and having regrets for years, maybe blaming the outside is a bit relieving, but it is just not accepting your own responsibilities.

Maybe the solution to move forward is not relief, but acceptance and pushing even harder, realizing you have control of your own life not situations, not circumstances, and realizing that you are, and must be, capable of manipulating these circumstances to your own benefit, into a benefit that your goal would profit from as well.

Yes, accepting responsibility is much harder than just sitting back and blaming. Maybe you don't want the burden of feeling that you were the person who had the ability to change. But then, how can you argue that you have goals and dreams while being this afraid of facing yourself?

Because, at the end, why do we even need improvement if we won't take any responsibility? Why do we live if we accept that this life isn't actually ours, but a game that is already determined?

I'm not saying, "Yeah, go ahead and change the whole ecosystem." I am saying: this is your goal, this is the ecosystem, and this is you. You need to be able to understand all of these constraints, limits, and benefits, and act accordingly. Understand where to do what, and act accordingly. This is what your brain is for. Not simply understanding the world, but understanding how to move through it. And at the end, your brain will find a way naturally if you really want it with every living cell in your body.

Nowadays, technology is evolving, resources are increasing every single day, and your chances of having excuses are reducing. People are becoming both more intelligent and, in some ways, dumber. It is not because of others' enforcement; it is because of their own choices, their own initiative to take responsibility for their own lives, not being lost—let me tell you, that is really hard—and going their own way. Their choices of finding a way toward their dreams, their choices of waking up optimistic—which is a choice—and doing something for the sake of their own lives matter. If you don't think of doing the same, that is a choice as well, but it doesn't give you any right to blame someone, some circumstance, or place yourself as a victim.

In this generation, believe it or not, being successful is much more accessible. Yes, every time competition goes wild, but the ratio of resource usage and access to resources is going in a downward trend. The gap is no more access or possibilities-as everyone knows.The gap is initiative. The willingness to take responsibility. The willingness to begin before feeling ready. The willingness to keep going when excuses would be easier.

At the end, everything relies on whether you accept that you are the only one in control of your own life and take responsibility for your own life, for your own goals. If you really want it that much, or the problem may be that we have lost our passions, our desire to achieve and attain something, and maybe we have simply gotten lost in the process of diagnosis, which is a whole other topic.

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Email

irem.kalender@ug.bilkent.edu.tr

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