Self Responsibility in order to Regain Control

Self-Responsibility vs. Dependence on Others

I’ve often reflected on what I call the two within — the seeming duality we live by. Yet, at the core, I believe there is only love within us. The concept of two — love and fear, light and dark, God and devil — may simply be something we’ve created to understand the world. I could be wrong, of course. I’ve been wrong many times in my life, and I’ve come to see that little is permanent except the truth.

And truth, as I’ve learned, cannot truly be told. It can’t be written or spoken, because words are only symbols. A word is not the thing it describes. “Bird” is not a bird; the word doesn’t fly. A bird simply is. That is-ness — the pure experience of being — is truth. Truth is a verb, a living movement, not a definition.

I believe we live from one of two states: love or fear. Some might say we move between the two, but for the sake of clarity, let’s imagine they are distinct. Every decision and belief we hold springs from one or the other.

When I believe in God, in goodness, in luck, in fate, or in the devil, I am giving some degree of power to something outside myself. Those beliefs shape my moment-to-moment experience — but they also place control somewhere else.
If, on the other hand, I believe that I am what I am, and that I am solely responsible for my life, then everything that happens becomes my responsibility. That realization is both terrifying and liberating. Fear can keep me from accepting that responsibility — but as soon as I surrender it, I also surrender my power.

I can’t have one without the other. If I say, It’s my fault that I feel lost, lonely, or depressed, then it’s also my responsibility to ask why. To question the root cause. The word question, in its older forms — Latin, Greek, Sanskrit — all mean “to seek.” When I question, I seek; when I seek, I uncover; and when I uncover, I dissolve the drama I’ve created.

If I place the blame on God, the devil, luck, or destiny, the story never ends. The drama continues to grow, taking root in my mind until those roots harden into reality. The more power I give that illusion, the more it seems to control me.

Taking full responsibility for my life can dissolve this entire pattern. Yet reaching that understanding doesn’t always happen in a single moment. It’s usually a gradual unfolding — a breaking down of the beliefs we inherited.
Nearly every belief we hold wasn’t originally ours. They were given to us — shaped by society, teachers, parents, religious leaders, and culture. What takes a lifetime to condition doesn’t usually dissolve in an instant, though perhaps for some it can.

For me, it’s taken years — and every day, I learn more. Not in a straight, upward climb, but in spirals. Some days I find myself dismantling beliefs I formed just yesterday. Growth doesn’t always move upward; sometimes it sways sideways, dips, or doubles back. The path isn’t a staircase — it’s a living landscape.

Today, I see belief itself as both powerful and dangerous. Belief can help us overcome fear — of heights, of speaking, of failure — by giving us courage we might not otherwise feel. But belief is also the veil between us and truth.
Because belief, by definition, is the creation of something not yet real.

Truth simply is. And when we take full responsibility for ourselves — for what we think, feel, and experience — we begin to see that all that truly exists within us… is love.