Pointing Fingers

As we grow up and become adults we move past the "know it all" stage and stop rebelling against the world and move into the "reflection" stage when we try to figure out who we are. A lot of times when we are at this stage we do a lot of blaming. We realize that we are angry because our mother was too controlling or we tend to get into fights because our father solved everything with hitting us. Maybe if our mother had given us a little more freedom while we were growing up we wouldn't be so angry and take things out on other people or we would have better relationships with our boss. Maybe we wouldn't feel the need to throw punches when we feel someone deserves it if our father hadn't hit us every time we pissed him off. Maybe. Maybe you wouldn't be this way if our parents had made different decisions but they did.
At one time our parents were the same age as us. They too had parents and they too grew to live life from the way they were molded. Oh so maybe it's not fully your parents fault maybe its your grand parents fault or your great great grand parents fault? Our parents, our grand parents, our great grand parents are all people too just like me and you. You know how you have issues with controlling your temper and do things you do not mean around your children or say mean things to your friends that you never meant to say. Yep, just like your parents. Basically we need to learn to take responsibility for our own actions and not blame our parents. For myself personally I have my own mommy and daddy issues. We all do. I remember being small and thinking I do not want to be like that when I grow up. I will not be like that with my kids when I grow up. It's mean. I remember when I was upset and laying on  my bed all I wanted was for my mom to come in and rub my back and tell me it was going to be ok like the mom on The Brady bunch. How come my mom wasn't like that? Now I am a grown adult. I have three beautiful foster children and guess what?! They piss me off sometimes. So what do I do? I still find myself raising my voice. I still find myself being in automatic mode just like my parents. But the difference is I do not sit back and blame my parents when I act this way. Instead responsibility for my actions and I go back and I sit down and talk with them. I stopped the cycle. I am role modeling for my kids so that when they grow up they can learn to take responsibility for their own actions as well. When I speak to them I am honest with them, sometimes even when a parent normally would be, but I do so to show them how to be authentic. We all make mistakes. It is our human nature. Instead of pointing fingers and making everything someone else's fault we need to take responsibility for our own actions. We very well may have been influenced by someone else when we did something we later regretted but we are our own person and nobody "MAKES" us do anything we made the choice we made ourselves do it.
All in all, as the saying goes, when you point a finger at someone you have three more pointing back at yourself. Cheesy I know, but it's true. On that note I suppose we all just need to stop and become more aware of what we are thinking, saying, and doing when we are reflecting because we are not being honest with ourselves when we are pointing fingers. It's our own fault no one else's.