It’s interesting. I’ve been noticing a particular behavior among many people lately that has been making me think. When some people have problems, they have this way of trying to make them your problems too.

Now, I’ve been very fortunate to have been raised by two amazing parents who’ve demonstrated to me what self-reliance, love and responsibility mean.

Self-reliance is taking care of one self. Accepting the circumstances of reality and then molding them to become what you want through hard work, dedication and intellect.

Love is something given, not taken. And it’s an amazing foundation to leap from, whether it be one’s love of life, of another or of oneself. And love given to you is not to be taken for granted.

And responsibility is accepting the choices one makes and the consequences of such and in regard to circumstances outside of one’s control, it’s about how one deals with them. It’s owning one’s actions.

Now, back to what I’ve been observing. It’s very easy to try to make your problem someone else’s problem. For example, say you drank too much at a bar last night, so you call your boss and say you’re sick and have them cover it for you. Or say you wrecked your car and have no transportation so you continually call others for rides, saying you don’t have a car and can’t get around. Or say your friend couldn’t drive you somewhere, so you argue that’s the reason you couldn’t get somewhere.

But the thing is, your problem is your problem. It’s no one else’s problem.

Now, someone could CHOOSE to help you but that’s a choice they have to make. In my opinion, it shouldn’t be something you expect. Sooooo many seem to have the “woe is me” attitude and when things go wrong, they feel they are owed something or that others should grant them something and many seem to enable this behavior, thinking they’re being a good person or perhaps are acting out of guilt or some misplaced feelings of compassion, but really, it only makes worse, in my opinion. If you enable this behavior, nothing will stop one from passing the buck, from making excuses, from failing to recognize the need to deal with one’s own problems, from accepting responsibility, from repeating this behavior, from trying to make their problems yours.

Your problems aren’t my problems… unless I allow them to be.