There are No Victorious Victims

I’ve gone through some serious changes over the last decade.

Lately I’ve been making some assessments…questioning where I am and how I got here…

and wondering how much those changes played a role in the transportation.

A little over ten years ago I was one motivated mofo. I took decisive action towards achieving goals. And I did achieve many.

Then something began to happen. I, over time, began to identify myself as a victim.

A victim of what, you ask?

Of my own poor choices. Of hardline, my way or the highway, thinking on the part of others. Of a rigged society. Of luck, most of it bad. Of the economy…the government…the establishment…of Da Man…

I’ve always been a rebellious, quasi-revolutionary, sort of dude. And living in Costa Rica, and deeply identifying with the people here, really brought that nature out.

But, here’s the problem with rebellions, quasi-revolutionary, dudes…

We often wander into victimhood. We often succumb to the idea that the problem is out there…and not in here.

We often find ourselves, turning on, tuning in, and dropping out, as Dr. Timothy Leary infamously exhorted during the counterculture-era in 1966.

Now, I’m not saying that there are no victims. Certainly there are…

All of us still here, alive and kicking, are victims of life…

Life’s tough…make no bones about it…tough as hell.

But as soon as you begin to IDENTIFY yourself as a victim…as in, that’s who I am…

then you’ve just lost a whole lot of your inner strength to change your situation, as well as being of any use to change that of others…

you’ve lost your impetus for impact.

And I firmly believe that lately I’ve been wandering in that wilderness of victimhood.

A big problem with all this is that I can see myself spending more time blaming than I do really getting down to the business of making positive change actually occur…

in my life as well as the lives of others that I might be able to touch, or to influence.

Simply put, there are no victorious victims.

Right now there’s a lot of blaming going on in this hyper-political environment leading up to the November presidential election.

Trump blames every minority group or foreign power for America’s problems.

Sanders blames the 1%.

I still haven’t figured out what Hillary’s doing, other than trying to stake her apparently inherited claim to assume the most powerful position on earth.

Of course, if you pay attention to anything I say here, you know that I agree wholeheartedly with Sanders.

As victims we tend to sit around and wait for change to happen…

We feel disempowered to really do anything ourselves about what we perceive as less than desirable.

Victimhood is not a highly motivated state of mind from which to take action.

I know…I’m there…and I feel anything but motivated. I sometimes feel like curling up in bed and just staying there until my situation improves.

One can be quite comfortable in victimhood, since it’s far easier to not take action because you believe the cards are stacked against you…

But inaction will never make a situation better, and may very well see it deteriorate towards uncontrollable levels.

That’s kind of where we’re at with global warming, now isn’t it?

So, what’s the core message of this post?

Don’t wander into the wilderness of victimhood.

We, you and I, have the ability to impart change…to make an impact…in our lives and in our world.

So, get out of bed…get out of victimhood…and just do it!

And remember that there are no victorious victims…so, simply refuse to be one.