# All our mistakes and our life are %100 our responsibility and our choices **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 1, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916 "2012-07-01T16:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gvozd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gvozd/32/7301_2.png) [@gvozd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gvozd)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/1 "2012-07-01T16:45:38Z")
Or other people interfere too much nowadays and it is no longer our choice and our life. Confused ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/2 "2012-07-02T01:33:11Z")
Everything that happens to me may not be directly caused by me, but in the end the buck stops here. Nobody is more responsible for my life than me, except maybe my mom until I was 6. I make choices and and I have to live with them. It’s a waste of a life to spend it blaming things on other people. There are lot of exceptions like people who are victims of war crimes or other horrible situations in which they are truly innocent. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/3 "2012-07-02T01:42:10Z")
Encouraging people to take control of their own life is not the same thing as saying it is cool for outsiders to judge their choices. Or one thing doesn’t follow from the other. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/4 "2012-07-02T02:00:05Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > Or other people interfere too much nowadays and it is no longer our choice and our life. Confused Can I ask how old you are? 'Cause this sounds like the kind of conundrum I had when I was 15, when my mom would be a total biotch and make me stay in and do homework instead of go to a party. She’d be all like, “you have to make better choices”, and I’d be all, “how can I make a choice when you’re making it for me?!” (This was often followed by such gems of teenage constancy like: “Get out of my life! Can I borrow $10?”) For most people, the ideal is that they are 100% responsible…until they aren’t. If they can’t/don’t take responsibility, and their lack of responsibility affects other people, then someone generally steps in to help/guide/coerce them into taking responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/5 "2012-07-02T02:00:26Z")
All my problems are society’s fault ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/6 "2012-07-02T02:07:22Z")
You can make the right decision and have it still look like a major error because no one sees what might have happened had you made the other choice(s). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/7 "2012-07-02T02:10:13Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > **All our mistakes and our life are %100 our responsibility and our choices?** No. There’s also chance, acting on bad information, and being coerced by those more powerful than you are. We are neither omniscient or omnipotent, and therefore incapable of being fully responsible for everything in our lives. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/8 "2012-07-02T02:11:13Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > You can make the right decision and have it still look like a major error because no one sees what might have happened had you made the other choice(s). Or because they don’t see the unique conditions you started from, or because they can’t see the future outcomes of the supposedly wiser choice. You can praise the guy who owns a house at 19, and not see him commiting suicide a decade later due to his stressful life. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/9 "2012-07-02T03:01:01Z")
All or nothing! Black or white! Left or right! 0 or 1! No in-between! ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/10 "2012-07-02T03:06:44Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > All our mistakes and our life are %100 our responsibility and our choices? Nope, none of it. You have no control. If you were born rich you’ll be rich. If you were born poor you’ll be poor. Turns out the US has a caste system and you are powerless to resist it. It’s all fate, luck, karma, and predetermined. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the tea leaves don’t look good for you. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/11 "2012-07-02T06:17:30Z")
Hell, I don’t even understand the question. I obviously need more to drink. ---
**Author:** ![gvozd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gvozd/32/7301_2.png) [@gvozd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gvozd)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/12 "2012-07-02T22:43:46Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Nope, none of it. You have no control. If you were born rich you’ll be rich. If you were born poor you’ll be poor. Turns out the US has a caste system and you are powerless to resist it. It’s all fate, luck, karma, and predetermined. > > And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the tea leaves don’t look good for you. I doubt that. Plus, I not sure about whether you mock me. If you mock, why? If you are not, could you be more specific? > [@emacknight](#): > > And I hate to be the one to tell you this. Why do you hate to be the one tell me this? > [@emacknight](#): > > but the tea leaves don’t look good for you. What does it mean? > [@Bosstone](#): > > All or nothing! Black or white! Left or right! 0 or 1! No in-between! If you try to criticize me the way I ask the question, know that I was not able to be specific due to language barrier. And, I’d appreciate your real answer. > [@PSXer](#): > > All my problems are society’s fault You are probably trying to demoralize me, aren’t you? ---
**Author:** ![gvozd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gvozd/32/7301_2.png) [@gvozd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gvozd)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/13 "2012-07-02T22:50:21Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Can I ask how old you are? Do you think you cannot ask me hold I am? Sorry for double post, I could not edit. I was too late. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/14 "2012-07-02T22:56:45Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > If you try to criticize me the way I ask the question, know that I was not able to be specific due to language barrier. And, I’d appreciate your real answer. That was my real answer. It’s not one or the other, but a mix of the two. There are things we can control and things we can’t control that influence our lives. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/15 "2012-07-02T23:06:00Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > Do you think you cannot ask me hold I am? > > Sorry for double post, I could not edit. I was too late. Oh! I’m sorry, I did not know that English is not your first language. What languages do you speak? “Can I ask how old you are?” is another way of saying, “Please tell me how old you are, if you are willing to tell me.” My whole post was probably too informal and hard for you to understand. Let me try again to answer your questions without all the slang: I wonder how old you are. The questions in your post remind me of the way I thought when I was about 15. I got very frustrated when my mother would make a choice for me, but she’d also yell at me to make my own choices. Now that I’m older, and have my own children, I understand better what she was doing. The answer to both of your questions is “yes”. Yes, you are responsible for your own choices and your own life. Yes, sometimes people have to interfere and make choices for you. People don’t always make good choices. People don’t always take responsibility for themselves. When the choices that a person makes start to hurt other people, then someone has to help. Sometimes that means teaching the person why their choices are hurting people, and teaching them what other choices they could be making instead (for example, making someone to go to classes to learn how to be a good parent instead of hurting their children). Sometimes that means making the choices for them (for example, a court ordering someone to pay child support because they won’t take the responsibility to pay it on their own.) Is that more clear? I hope so. Please, keep posting. This message board is an excellent place for you to practice your English! Lots of message boards have posters who don’t use very good English, and you can learn lots of mistakes. This message board mostly has posters who use very good English, when we’re not being too silly to be understood. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/16 "2012-07-02T23:53:12Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > That was my real answer. It’s not one or the other, but a mix of the two. There are things we can control and things we can’t control that influence our lives. Hence the famous “[Serenity Prayer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer)”: > [@](#): > > God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, > Courage to change the things I can, > And wisdom to know the difference. The OP may wish to read up on the idea of “[locus of control](http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_90.htm).” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/17 "2012-07-03T01:03:37Z")
I’ve actually met people who believe that “Everything that happens to you in this life is consensual.” You get only what you accept. Yeah, bullshit. And the rape victim was asking for it. The fact is, sometimes someone else is stronger, or is in a position of authority, or has more money, or is more persuasive. Juries don’t always make the right decision either. Life isn’t fair…but I’d still rather live in a state of civilization than a state of nature. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/18 "2012-07-03T01:06:03Z")
What happens to you is out of your control. How you respond is 100% in your control. Also, many decisions made are uninformed ones, and that information is not always within your ability to know. Hence why we tend to make more mistakes when young, 'cause sometimes, people learn from them. Some people never make mistakes and so never learn certain things; some people make mistakes their whole lives and never learn from them. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/19 "2012-07-03T03:24:58Z")
Mistakes are far better teachers than we tend to want to acknowledge. But of course, we Humans have a near infinite capacity for self-deception and a willingness to ignore reality in favor of our desired fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916/20 "2012-07-03T12:21:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I’ve actually met people who believe that “Everything that happens to you in this life is consensual.” You get only what you accept. > > Yeah, bullshit. And the rape victim was asking for it. Maybe she wasn’t asking for it (whatever that means), but if she had a sense of self-preservation, she would not have chosen to drink herself to unconsciousness at the frat party. That’s like crossing the street without looking both ways first, even when you have the green light: yes, you had the right-of-way, you weren’t asking to be raped or run over, but you still need to protect your own interests from other people’s inattention, greed, or malice. > [@Trinopus](#): > > The fact is, sometimes someone else is stronger, or is in a position of authority, or has more money, or is more persuasive. True, sometimes you’re going to get screwed despite your best efforts. But your goal, if you are acting in your own best interest, is to minimize the opportunties for the universe (and the people in it) to screw you. Lock your door, wear your seatbelt/helmet, don’t drink to oblivion at frat parties, get flood insurance, etc. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-our-mistakes-and-our-life-are-100-our-responsibility-and-our-choices/626916.md?page=2)