Everything Is Your Fault
The uncomfortable truth about self-awareness, ownership, and why freedom requires both.
“The life puzzle starts to make a lot more sense once you realize everything is your fault.
Nothing keeps people stuck in their own way like lacking self-awareness, deferring ownership, and blaming external circumstances for the problems they created.
Freedom demands ownership.”
-Ray Zingler on X
The modern-day feel-good philosopher type love to tell you, “it’s not your fault”.
“Stop blaming yourself for …”
Well guess what?
The modern-day feel-good philosopher type are full of shit.
They tell you that to make you feel good when they’re merely sheltering themselves from owning their own shortcomings. It’s why they encourage you to do the same.
After all, misery does love company.
The cheat code in life is understanding everything is your fault.
It sounds harsh.
It sounds dismissive.
It sounds blind to circumstances that are (truly) outside of one’s control, but the truth is the message isn’t stating you (always) “deserved” what happened to you.
It’s stating your response is your responsibility.
How you choose to behave in lieu of what happened to you is on you.
Notice how the “oh woe is me” camp tend to always stay in the “oh woe is me” camp?
It’s because instead of owning their shit, they defer it.
Why do they defer it?
Because blame protects their ego. It avoids discomfort. It postpones change – for many it removes potential for it all together.
They do it for the short-term cushion.
Relief, validation, sympathy.
But they don’t understand the long-term costs of putting ownership off:
Ingrained patterns, powerless, stagnation.
It’s why so many people in the internet era are assholes online.
They’re not “haters”.
They’re small people projecting the resentment they have for themselves onto you.
It’s precisely what feeds their vicious misery cycle.
They stay chained to the silent killers of growth:
1) Lack of self-awareness – instead of looking inwardly at themselves and the role they play in their own suffering, they look outwardly. And they seek validation from people like them, which further blinds them from reality. And they’ll never be able to address in themselves what they refuse to see.
2) Deferring Ownership – “Well you see, my employee didn’t, he just doesn’t..” Dude it’s your fcking fault. “No, but he…” Do you tolerate it? Yes? It’s your fault. You don’t have to “do it” for it to be your fault.
3) Blaming External Circumstances – It’s not your genetics. It’s not the economy. It’s not “lack of opportunity”. It’s you.
Nothing is more liberating than understanding it’s all on YOU.