Hi, I'm Sam,
I didn't learn how to take accountability for the right reason. When things go the wrong way as a result of my actions or decisions, I will always be the first to acknowledge that I am the root cause and not the person who had to react to what I did. Someone else might see it as me being the bigger person to realize what had happened and take responsibility and that is completely what it is now but it didn't start of that way. In the beginning of my "accountability", I simply took accountability so that people would just shut up or simply just say nice things to encourage me because I've done the other thing they would've done which was to point out where and where I did wrong to result to the present situation. It will only take someone who has a really hard time reading the room to still try to point out my wrongs while I'm actively blaming myself while trying to take accountability for my actions. If the person can read the room, the person will only be left with two options which are to either shut up and let me sulk or try to be kind with their words to encourage me because I'm doing quite the opposite. Even in my deceit, I can genuinely appreciate my efforts, as I'm trying to control others with what I'm doing, deep down it is obvious that I really messed up and need to do certain things to either make amends or remind myself not to make such decisions but while I was still basking in the fake accountability, I still find myself falling and messing things up and it only started to get better when my accountability became genuine and not about controlling others.
Some say we know exactly what we're doing but sometimes I don't think I know why I do certain things that I do. I might have an excuse for what I find myself doing but that doesn't make it the legit reason behind my actions and because excuse is often enough, we now consider it a reason to do what we do. The excuse provides enough words to say to not seem dumb but does not make enough sense when you think deeply on it. Sometimes I wonder how people do what they do even when they can clearly see that it hurts the people they love and believe me, it looks clearer from the outside, when it feels like you have a front row seat to people actions and because you can see it on the wide screen, you're able to notice patterns and figure out the real reason why someone is acting the way they are, you often see it as a weakness that the person is blind to their actions while you can see everything forgetting that you're not the one in the vicious cycle of terrible decisions irrespective of who is getting hurt. You can always apologize for the hurt not because you're truly sorry even though you care but because you think it's the sensible thing and the natural next action to take and because the apology is not sincere and not coming from and for the right reason, it will only be a matter of time before your inflict pain again.
As someone who is going through the terrible cycle, you're saddled with the burden of acknowledging your actions, excusing your excuses, getting help, working on getting better, patting yourself on the back as encouragement, getting better, carrying on and trying to act normal and be on a wavelength that masks everything underneath. Just listing these things was exhausting let alone living it as a reality. When you feel like you have some of them on track, the others feel like they're slipping out of your hand and when one mistake is made, it ultimately feels like nothing has ever been on track which belittles or even nullifies the effort and growth that you've experienced on your journey and suddenly you fall of and have to begin again and I know how the idea of starting afresh comes with a terrifying feeling let alone going through with it. We dish out grace like we own it in bulk when it comes to others, but when it comes to ourselves we begin to treat the supply likes there's a grace famine and we have to justify to ourselves why we deserve the grace from us to us. Like we want to do the hard work to justify giving ourselves grace like outsiders will ask us hard hitting questions and we want to be prepared with solid answers to keep whatever shred of grace we eventually give ourselves after the excruciating torture we put ourselves through.
When I take responsibility or try to be accountable for my actions and decisions, my initial hope is to feel better about the situation while making sure that everyone who could have something to say to me and about me can just back off and not add to my self loathing that I do in the name of accountability. But one thing has come out of my tricky methods, the constant self-loathing-accountability only engraves in my mind the consequences of making certain choices. When I'm presented with very or vaguely similar situations, I can't help but remember how it didn't go well the last time and now I'm muscled to make better choices or take completely different route, because it will only be a fool who would do the same things over and over and expect a different outcome. I am still learning to be accountable for the right reasons and to have a better learning outcome but one thing I do know at this point is that I won't be making certain decisions anymore whether or not I took responsibility for them because I have seen that film before, and i really did not like the ending.
