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"Isn't accepting responsibility the same as accepting blame?" … Responsibility always looks
forward, always to the future. Blame always looks backward, to the past, to blame someone
who is guilty. Apportioning blame and guilt will not free your mind of negative emotions.

Responsibility gives you back your control, self-reliance and pro--activeness. Blame makes you
feel angry, resentful and frustrated. Someone bumps into your car at a traffic light. Of course
you’re not at fault. But you are responsible for the way you react. You are responsible for how
you conduct yourself. You can show anger and other negative emotions, or be mature, calm
and controlled. The choice is yours. And how you will feel is determined by how you decide to
react, not by the circumstances. Responsibility or irresponsibility, positive or negative, happiness
or bitterness; the choice is yours.

Clean your windows

"If you knew what that other person did to me, you’d never expect me to accept responsibility."
But here is the key lesson learned. The perpetuation of negative emotion in your mind is enough
to sabotage your chances for happiness. Even one negative emotion of blame or anger can
interfere with your peace of mind indefinitely.

To illustrate this critical point, imagine that you have just purchased a beautiful house in your
dream location, with wonderfully peaceful panoramic views, perfect in every detail. There is
only one problem. The windows are so coated in dust and grime, you cannot see out. If
everything in this house is perfect except for those dirty windows, what would happen if you did
not clean them?

The answer is that you would eventually forget what a beautiful view you had inherited, it is likely
that the house would not seem as appealing. You can’t see the wonderful view for the dirty
windows.

Your world is full of people who are just like that new house. You may be one of them. Possibly
they are intelligent, good-looking and well-educated, .and may seem to have everything going
for them, but their lives just never seem to contain the reality of happiness contained in their
dream. Almost always this is because they are holding on to at least one negative experience
from their past for which they are refusing to accept responsibility. They are still blaming
someone or something for a hurt they have suffered.

Generations of people from all cultures, many of whom have reached and past middle age are
still angry and resentful over something that happened to them in child-hood. These unresolved
issues of bitterness affect their relationships with their spouses, their children, their colleagues and
their friends. It shows itself in psychosomatic illnesses, and in the most extreme cases, can even
lead to early death.

There are thousands of psychotherapists have become very wealthy on the back of helping
people to deal with these unresolved emotions of anger, guilt and resentment. The cure comes
when he or she can identify what is holding him or her back, face it honestly and release it. You
can accom-plish very much the same thing by identifying any feelings of nega-tivity you have
toward anyone, accepting responsibility for the situation and releasing it.