Happy relationships don’t rely on fate, they don’t rely on our parents, or their parents before them. They rely on communication, the right interaction and the choices we make. A choice we make to do things better. As we look back through the generations, we may often see patterns emerging of behaviour that we shouldn’t want to repeat.
We must want to chart our own path, our own journey, regardless of what’s gone before us. Unless we make a conscious decision to change things, we will unconsciously emulate our parents’ failings and their parents’ failings before them. Ultimately, all it does is allow history to repeat itself for us and our own children.
I agree. If we follow in our parents footsteps, we will more than likely make the same mistakes they made.
We do need to make a life for ourselves. Make our own mistakes, because through our mistakes we learn.
You're absolutely right. Thanks Lisa!
Yes it does ultimately come down to making a choice as to whether or not we want to continue following our parents' path or following our own!
I had tried so hard to do things differently but ended up being so much worse than they were. I made choices to not deal with my own demons which led me on a very dark path. I've had to come to accept the issues I have to deal with which don't have to continue ruining my life. I guess at some point I had given up on living life, since it felt like nothing I did to change things really mattered.
Now I have come to realize that I still have a deep desire to change the course of my family history. It has just been very difficult at times considering there's always more skeletons falling out of the closet! My daughter wants to know more about this but there are times when I just can't deal with what I find.
I've been pushing her to do things that would better her life too, but I've had to realize that I can't force her if she's not willing.
The only one I can really change is myself when it comes down to it!
Thanks Randy. Perhaps you can change things together with your daughter!
We should try to lead by example. If we're asking our children to do something, we should do the same. At the end of the day, our choices are for us to make and should have nothing to do with previous generations.
At the end of the day as you say we can only change ourselves to make better choices for us and our own children.
I think we all learn by making mistakes, some of us learn after the first mistake and with some it takes many of them to learn the lesson. My Mom always pointed out to us or told us about things in her life that didn't work out the way she wanted them to. She always said "look what happened to me and don't let it happen to you."
It was nice to hear that someone had gone through the problem and came out the other side. Kind of really made us think about outcomes before doing things, made us less of the "fly by the seat of your pants" type people.
Thanks Maria. I agree, we're less likely to make the same mistakes when we're told someone has made the mistake already, but would their mistake be a mistake for us? That's probably another debate!
I think it wise we to think about outcomes before doing things. That way we if we still decide to go ahead, we've considered all its possibilities first and that in itself should stop us from becoming 'fly by the seat of your pants' type people. I'm all for that.
It is quite empowering when you realise that so much can change through our choices. The difficult part of that is the realisation in the first place.