What I value...

My friend Tracey posted the topic of our blog challenge today and I really like it.

What do I value in life and how does that tie in with my morals/belief systems/values?

I think one of the things that I truly value in my life is my sense of responsibility, my confidence, and my independence.

It's so funny that Tracey posted this topic today, because just over a week ago, I was told that I "have an issue with weakness".

After five long months of this deployment, the third in four years, I was reaching a breaking point. In a little over a 10 days, three separate incidents pushed me closer and closer to feeling like I was just losing it. I hated how I felt, so out of control and so completely unlike me. I hated this weakness I was feeling in myself.

Since then, I've had some good, long talks with people that I trust; I had a good crying jag and got out some pent up emotions; and this week I am feeling much better, much more in control of myself and my life. Getting through this has just emphasized to me how much I value these character traits in myself and in others.

People who take no control over their lives irritate me. To allow your fate to be written by others, your life choices to be dictated to you by someone other than yourself...I find that unfathomable.

People who blame their bad fortune or their bad circumstances on fate or on the government or anyone but themselves make me crazy. To blame the fact that, as an adult, you shot your parents with a shotgun on the fact that they abused you as child; well that's ludicrous. We are in control of our own lives. We can chose to work hard and live well or we can chose to commit crimes and be a burden on society. People who don't take responsibility for their own actions and their own life irritate the living daylights out of me.

I also dislike weakness and timidity. I meet life head on, with my chin up and my shoulders back. I accept nothing less from myself and find it difficult to respect people who are scared of their own shadows.

I've been told that I'm too black and white and that life is filled with grey areas. Perhaps for other people it is, but for me, it's not. There is right and there is wrong; there is true and there is false; there is living well and there is coasting through life.

Stating these views has caused some problems for me in the past. People dislike me for my hardnosed views on things and my unwillingness to bend my views to blend into our "blame it on someone else" society. But the strength of my convictions are another thing that make me who I am. Love me or hate me, but respect my honesty. I say what I think and I think what I say.