What helps you accept responsibility for your own choices?

An independent approach to life assists building inner peace by simplifying the equations. It reduces outer interference. Less input from other people makes it easier to accept responsibility for our decisions, as well as our inner peace. Inner peace is not dependent on anyone else. Making our own decisions doesn’t mean we can’t have input. It just means we don’t have to worry about making others angry if we don’t accept their input. We do this simply by carrying the attitude that ultimately it’s our decision, our responsibility, and we accept the consequences.

Example: My parents encouraged my already independent nature. I don’t know how my parents managed to bring me up to be so independent. I do know that even in little things like asking my father the definition of a word, he’d tell me to look it up myself. I was headstrong without being disobedient. In grade school I wrote down my disgust at how the principal handled a situation with another child. I wisely threw it away, thinking nobody would ever see it. Another child that apparently felt I had put into words what many of us were feeling, took the paper out of the trash and took it to the principal as if she had written it. The principal promptly disciplined her by making her stay after school to clean all the trash cans. Well, this put me in the position of having to go and tell the principal I had written the note. She simply said I could help the other girl clean the trash cans.