Are we responsible for our own circumstances?

[medusa]

I notice that the example about the murder has been removed. Maybe it's still a bit fresh, but it's current events and nothing in the forum rules says I can't talk about it.

What control do you have over your life when someone walks into a shop and stabs you to death?

Or if you get hit by a bad driver. Or if the economy collapses and nobody wants to buy your services or hire you to work?

You have choices still, but the fact that you need to make a choice has been forced on you by things beyond your control.

 

Your post was removed because it quoted and directly answered a post which was removed for another reason. Nothing to do with your post itself.

[Magilla]

What control do you have over your life when someone walks into a shop and stabs you to death?

 

None, but then you're not alive so the question is moot.

 

Or if you get hit by a bad driver. Or if the economy collapses and nobody wants to buy your services or hire you to work?

You have choices still, but the fact that you need to make a choice has been forced on you by things beyond your control.

 

I don't believe it matters, the fact is that you have a choice regardless of any external circumstances. It's the choices you make that make your life what it is, external factors just mean you have to make more choices.

[Grandad.Malky]

Your post was removed because it quoted and directly answered a post which was removed for another reason. Nothing to do with your post itself.

 

I know that’s how it works but one cant help but think “ what have I done wrong”

 

As for the OP.

 

Are we responsible for our own circumstances? No, there are many things totally outside our control, perhaps the question should be are we responsible for our own acts or omisionns?

[perplexed]

I work long, hard hours. Sometimes 70 hours a week.

 

Hypothetically, if my employer decides to dispense with my services through no fault of my own next month, this creates issues, not least financial.

 

Yes, I can study, retrain, look for another job etc etc. Which I'd obviously do.

 

But in the meantime, my circumstances have drastically changed. I did not see my employment demise coming. Nor did my colleagues. Bear in mind the hours I work, this has left precious little time for "self improvement". (Also, I'm expected to keep up with the latest developments in my field in my own time, what little there is of it...)

 

Well, you may say, you knew the crack when you started.

 

Not so. My job has changed so much since I first started, and morphed several times. Very insiduously, little by little. Goalposts have not so much moved, as emigrated.

 

But of course, by this time we've all got commitments.

 

Cyclone is right. We don't live in a vacuum, and are frequently very dependent on external influences. Yes, we may choose how we react to a change, but even that choice can be very restricted by circumstances.

[Cyclone]

Your post was removed because it quoted and directly answered a post which was removed for another reason. Nothing to do with your post itself.

 

Ah, okay. It's difficult to tell isn't it, I know you can't pm everyone and let them know...

[Cyclone]

None, but then you're not alive so the question is moot.

It's moot for the dead individual, but it pretty much conclusively proves that you do not control your own life.

 

 

I don't believe it matters, the fact is that you have a choice regardless of any external circumstances. It's the choices you make that make your life what it is, external factors just mean you have to make more choices.

You don't have any choice when someone is stabbing you, do you?

 

External factors also limit what choices are available to you and are massively influential in how your life unfolds. To pretend otherwise is to set yourself for some severe disappointment.

[Magilla]

It's moot for the dead individual, but it pretty much conclusively proves that you do not control your own life.

 

No, it proves don't have control over your own life when you're dead.

 

You don't have any choice when someone is stabbing you, do you?

 

You have a choice of what course of action to take should you survive.

 

External factors also limit what choices are available to you and are massively influential in how your life unfolds.

 

External factors simply inluence the choices you make (or are able to make), you still make the choices.

 

To pretend otherwise is to set yourself for some severe disappointment.

 

Hence my point about being "realistic".

[Cyclone]

No, it proves don't have control over your own life when you're dead.

No, it proves you don't have control over it when you're alive, as that's how you end up dead! If you had control, you'd decide not to be stabbed, but that's not an option at that point due to you not actually controlling your life.

 

 

You have a choice of what course of action to take should you survive.

Which is irrelevant, the fact that you cannot choose for things not to happen to you proves that you do not control your life.

 

 

External factors simply inluence the choices you make (or are able to make), you still make the choices.

Nobody has said you can't make choices. That wasn't even the original question. Being able to choose from a limited set of choices does not mean that you are in complete control of your life, and QED you are not entirely responsible for your own circumstances.

 

 

 

Hence my point about being "realistic".

Claiming that you are entirely responsible for any success or failure is not realistic.

[medusa]

You don't have any choice when someone is stabbing you, do you?

 

External factors also limit what choices are available to you and are massively influential in how your life unfolds. To pretend otherwise is to set yourself for some severe disappointment.

 

When I was first ill I called it 'not on the menu'.

 

If you eat in a restaurant and you place an order then a couple of minutes later the waiter comes back and tells you that they no longer have any of what you ordered so can you make another choice, what happens if you don't like any of the choices on the menu that they do have? You can't walk out because everybody else has got meals arriving, so you have to bite the bullet and order something else, even if it's not what you want.

 

Me: 'I want to be well'

Counsellor: 'Yes, but that's not on the menu'

 

Me: 'I want to go home now'

Counsellor: 'That's not on the menu either'

 

Me: 'I'd like my right arm back please'

Counsellor: 'No, that's not on the menu either'

 

Me: 'How about stopping the pain?'

Counsellor: 'Nope, sorry, no option for that'

 

Me: 'So what IS on the menu?'

Counsellor: 'Well, right now you don't have a choice, apart from whether you fall apart or whether you deal with the pain, deal with your disabilities, deal with your loss, deal with your ongoing disease.'

 

Me: 'I don't want any of them though. This isn't fair'

Counsellor: 'Who told you that life was fair?'

 

Eventually, of course, I found a way through it all, but at the time the choices left open to me weren't exactly dazzling and just because I had the choice of whether I took my next breath that didn't stop me feeling that all of the big choices in my life were completely out of my power.

[Cyclone]

A particularly harsh example, most of us are lucky enough to not have to deal with that.

But we all deal with things beyond our control everyday, how you deal with them is a mark of what kind of person you are and we can influence how things turn out. But we're certainly not in absolute control of our lives.