The Oldest Family Recipe for Ultimate Success
How To Stop Feeding Ourselves Poison
The blame game has been a very popular game for centuries. It seems to have even been played by cave dwellers. I can just hear Mrs. Cave Man saying to Mr. Cave man, “If you’d had any sense at all you wouldn’t have gone anywhere near that sabretooth. You’re lucky to be alive!”
And Mr. Caveman muttered under his breath, “If I hadn’t married you, I wouldn’t have gone out of the cave in the first place!”
The Poison We Feed Ourselves
Today, people everywhere are blaming our leaders as well as their kids for the economy, our health problems, and world disorder.
And we are blaming each other for all kinds of things, like the loss of our jobs, our extravagant spending, and even the cost of toothpaste.
For we haven’t yet realized our real … and biggest … PROBLEM is the Poisonous Recipe of Obsessive Blame that Leads to an Embittered Meal. Emotional mayhem. And an Entrapped Mindset.
For years, I too blamed everyone for my troubles. I blamed my parents for my anxiety and depression. My husband for his drinking. The world for my impoverished life. And even my dog for dying.
I’ve spent most of my life blaming everyone I could think of for everything that went wrong in my life…
Until …
The Day Of Recognition
I realized that I had a bad taste in my mouth. Simply because of what I was eating. For I was eating a whole big batch of the wrong recipe. I didn’t know then about such things as Google Goulash. Or Muffin Tribe Success Recipes.
I didn’t know about such recipes as funny tales to ease the pain and frustration. I only knew the recipe called blame. In fact I didn’t even know I was feeding off my blame for others …
But then I read what Epictetus said: “to accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun.”
And I began a serious and intensive investigation of the recipes I was always cooking. And all its ingredients, and I discovered the secrets of sweet-tasting forget-it-not recipes to replace all those bitter-tasting blame recipes.
And I concluded that I had indeed been responsible in some way or other for cooking up much of what had happened to me.
No, I wasn’t responsible for my parents’ continuous battles. No, I wasn’t responsible for my failure to make the income I truly desired. No, I wasn’t responsible for my husband’s drinking.
But what I was responsible for, as Epictetus said, was my own reactions to all those things. I had unwittingly set myself up for failure because I chose to get upset. I chose to be angry. I chose to feel anxious and miserable.
And I chose to be the person I became. Irrational. Self-delusional. And ignorant of who I was becoming.
Yet I still wondered why I felt so bad. I still wondered why I did so many stupid things. I even wondered if was possible that I could change. That I could get better.
And one day I discovered the best recipe of all…
The Oldest Secret Family Recipe
I discovered something major. I discovered an even bigger truth. I found that the result, the ultimate test, is honesty. Honesty about your capacity to control things.
For we all want to have control over our own lives. And we think, “If I could just get a handle on things, if I just could control this, or that, or him, or her, then everything in my world would be alright. I would be alright.”
But the world doesn’t work that way.
For as Epictetus pointed out, there are things you can control and things you can’t control. And you have to know the difference. And the truth is, according to Epictetus, no one is free who hasn’t mastered themselves. And “freedom is the only worthy goal in life.”
In short, if we master ourselves … instead of trying to control the things and people around us; instead of blaming others or ourselves for everything and anything that goes wrong …
then we will experience the ultimate success.
True freedom.
FREEDOM is the oldest Family Recipe Everyone Enjoys who Discovers Oneself a Master … of self.
And according to Epictetus, “to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.”
For freedom is the recipe our ancestors cooked up for us that led to our ability to choose for ourselves what was good for us. Just so we could eat, drink, and pursue with healthful lust a life of ultimate success.
So what recipe is your oldest family recipe that you cook up regularly?