MUSINGS OF THE DAY - June 11, 2015

"A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying."

- John Burroughs - 

In this life, I've had numerous times where discouragement supplanted all thoughts of trudging forward, and I found myself wallowing in the failure of who I thought I was. I did blame others in those dark moments. I wanted someone else to take responsibility for my life, for who I was, for the possibility of me. I wanted the world to know how wrong it was for a girl like myself to have such a hard go of it. I wanted others to feel sorry for me, because then I believed they would fix what was broken in me - that is, if they truly loved me.

Little did I know that what was "broken" in me needed mending from the inside, and the inside was a place no one could venture. Except me. 

Today the word blame is no longer allowed in my vocabulary, at least when it comes to myself and my own life. And the keep-on-of-keeping-on is paramount for me on a daily basis, because sometimes that's what it comes down to, one day at a time. I know, very cliche and kind of sappy but so true.

I have to remind myself that taking responsibility for my own life and actions transforms my life from a prison that I endure to an open meadow where I'm free. I don't have to live in the constraints of waiting for somebody to live my life for me, and, beyond the simple restoration of my responsibility and dignity, I gain hope, laughter, ease, contentment, enthusiasm, connectedness, love, creativity, and much more.

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John Burroughs was born in Roxbury, New York on April 3, 1837 and left this world on March 29, 1921. He was a nature essayist and a naturalist. He wrote essays for the Atlantic Monthly. Hurd & Houghton published his first collection of essays, Wake-Robin. He was friends with Walt Whitman and was encouraged by Whitman "to develop his nature writing as well as his philosophical and literary essays." Here are a few of his writings: Winter Sunshine, Ways of Nature, Far and Near, Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person, Whitman: A Study, and Under the Apple Trees.