Five Remembrances of the Buddha, Part 4

​My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
 
In the past two entries I’ve explored things we can’t change: the way life works (illness, age, death) and other people and things. So where does that leave us? The last remembrance tells us that all we can control are our own actions.

Our response to life is the only thing we own. It’s the only thing we take with us everywhere we go at all times. Furthermore, our actions speak for us. How we act is what we fall back upon. It says who we are and what’s important to us.
 
What this remembrance means to me is that I have control over my actions. I can make that decision on how to respond to the things that happen to me. I wish I had control over more things, especially when life doesn’t seem fair.
 
There are often arrayed against us a plethora of cultural and personal barriers: racism, sexism, homophobia, mental illness, physical disability, etc. And they’re not fair. Yet, our response to them is all we can control. Part of that means we can choose to act by fighting against the systems and people that hold us back.
 
Our attitude can go a long way to determining how we view life and in turn our mental health. I acknowledge that even though we control our actions, it’s not always easy to be positive and optimistic. Life can suck and it’s up to us to get to the point with our mental health where it’s possible to see this remembrance as do-able.

It hasn’t always been simple for me to acknowledge that I have any control over my life. Often I have to fight against feeling helpless and hopeless. This happens especially when there are decisions to be made by others and I’m left waiting on their actions. But if I can confront and work on my mental illness, I find the remembrance that I only have control over my behavior to be a reasonable one to address.

Attempting to take on my own mental health and deal with it is an action in itself. It’s an action that says I’m trying and shows what I’m made of. This is a consequence that I’m willing to accept.