New life philosophy

I've got a new outlook on life. My beliefs are changing.

I used to think that everything was fixed, that there was a grand master plan and there was this unavoidable thing called destiny, there was right and wrong and black and white and no in between.

But I'm now realizing that life is infinitely complex, people are infinitely complex, and it comes down to the choices you make. It's what works for you. What someone else may think is awful and would never stand for, you may be perfectly okay with. They may think it's wrong, but it's just a preference you have.

Now, I believe murder is wrong. I believe war is awful. But no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides to every coin.

What about the wife who was beaten every day by the man she had an arranged marriage with? And finally killed him in an act of self-defense?

What about the oppressed people groups who are taken advantage of and need their freedom? What about people like ISIS, who terrorize anyone who thinks differently from them...how do you stop them?

What about the woman who tries and tries to have children, and when she finally gets pregnant, it's an ectopic pregnancy which would end up being life-threatening to both her and her baby? (an ectopic pregnancy is when the fertilized egg attaches itself somewhere other than the uterus, like inside the fallopian tube, for example. The growing embryo would rupture it, making the pregnancy unviable). Should we really say that abortion is unacceptable under ANY circumstances?

We are not responsible for other people's choices, but we are responsible for how we react to them. We are in control of ourselves, and only ourselves. When it comes to raising children, we are not in control of them either, nor do I believe we should be. I believe we should choose to teach them that they are responsible for their own choices, and that their choices have consequences. We should teach them to respect all others, not by threatening them or intimidating them into doing so, but by accepting our responsibility to help them understand why this is the best course of action.

Now it becomes introspective:

I am not responsible for what Cody did. I chose to give him a certain amount of freedom, which I genuinely believe is everyone's right, and he chose to abuse that freedom. I am responsible for my choice to not continue to have him in my life. I am not responsible for the young man in college who chose to have sex with me without my consent, but I am responsible for not speaking up in a way to make my feelings of discontent known the way I could have. I am responsible for treating others the way I want to be treated, the way human beings deserve to be treated. I will not try to change anyone; I will either accept them for who they are in their entirety and keep them in my life, or decide that I do not want to have someone in my life because of certain things I don't agree with and remove them from my life.

If I don't like something in my life, I choose to change it.

I'm not responsible for my mother dying. I am, however, responsible for how I react to it. I see that depression is trying to make my life miserable, and I choose to seek help via therapy.

In the end, I have to know that I made choices that aligned with my personal values. And with that, I can say that I lived a successful life.