When I was a kid,  probably because I was told this so often,  I thought that I could control the world,  or the world writ small, which meant the people around me.   I was a smart and intuitive kid,  and I’d been told over and over that if I were just better bad things wouldn’t keep happening.    If I stopped being so melodramatic,  if I stopped questioning everything,   if I stopped being so awkward and tried to fit in,  if I did what I was supposed to do perfectly,  than the river of life would settle down and be smooth instead of the constant challenge of rapids and rocks to rip the unwary that it always seemed to be.

I was an imaginative kid,   so magical thinking came easy to me.    I started to believe that if I just got everything right,  if I could control every circumstance and everyone,  then I would get the perfect life and the love and safety that I deserved.   I started to believe, largely because it always seemed to be that way,  that life was a series of being owed and owing,  and that I was owed something for the crap I’d been through.    I fully expected that at some point the Universe would settle some cosmic debt and all the good things I deserved would rain down upon me.    Except the Universe never paid up or, if it did,  it wasn’t in the coin I expected.

The idea that I was owed something  was a very seductive one,  because it took the responsibility out of my hands.   Happiness would balance pain,   and I would be compensated,  all I had to do was wait.   It didn’t matter if I tried to figure out how to unlearn coping mechanisms that no longer served me.   I didn’t need to try to understand why I thought the way I did about myself and my relationships with others and the world.   I could get as angry and bitchy and stupid as I wanted because I was owed, damn it,  and the universe was taking way too long to pay up.

My dark year was,  I think,  the result of finding out that no one, including the Universe, owed me anything.  If my life was going to get better I was going to have to make it so.   That seemed too hard, it was easier to just let go and drift and not care.    I tried to erase myself,  but didn’t succeed, and gradually  I started slogging up the hill again,  working to get stronger and better and smarter than I had been.   Realizing that I was a work in progress, and probably always would be,  and that all my scars,  physical, mental and emotional,  were going to be with me forever.  Realizing that the only one who owed me anything was me.

The conclusion I came to in the end is this,  what I owe the world, and what we all owe each other,  are the best versions of ourselves,  the very best people we can be.   Becoming those people isn’t easy,  it takes a lot of hard work,  a lot of self examination,  and the courage to look at the not so nice parts of yourself and your life and own those things.  Yes,  people did things to you,  or were mean, or abusive.  People judged you unfairly and didn’t give you a chance.  Sometimes people and events in your life just plain sucked.   All that matters,  but it doesn’t determine who you are.   You get to make that decision.

So make being the best you can be your goal.

And then get to work!