By Gregg Sanderson
“Two Roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”—Robert Frost
There are few roads less traveled today than the Fifth Pathway from Ken Keyes’ Handbook to Higher Consciousness.
I take full responsibility here and now for everything I experience, for it is my own programming that creates my actions and also influences the reactions of people around me.
The Fifth Pathway gives us good news and bad news:
The good news: I, and only I, have the power to determine how I experience any given situation.
The bad news: I, and only I, have the power to determine how I experience any given situation.
Please don’t equate responsibility with blame. We consider responsibility as simply the ability to respond, and blame as the tool of the self-righteous when they try to avoid responsibility. The two are mutually exclusive.
Yet it appears that our society is all about blame. Take this scenario, from a jillion country songs: I saw you with somebody else. I got jealous, acted like a jerk, and I’m miserable without you.
In other words, “I have a mental picture of how you should be. You didn’t fit it and I got jealous. Now you left, I’m miserable, and it’s all your fault.”
Meanwhile, you were just being you.
I take full responsibility here and now for everything I experience…
What Responsibility would say is, “I have a mental picture of how you should be. You didn’t fit it, but I can change the picture to include you the way you are.”
…for it is my own programming that creates my actions and also influences the reactions of people around me. If I change the picture I might not be jealous, and your reaction might be different.
Either way, you’re just being you.
The obvious question is, “How do I change those pictures?” One way is to bring your consciousness into harmony with the Twelve Pathways. Rather than have you wait for the futures installments, you can get all twelve at www.highvibrations.org/archive1/pathways.htm
Many of the messages we get from society are about blaming. Mark Twain nailed it when he said,
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.”
How can anybody win with attitudes like that?
I believe the mental cause of most of the world’s troubles today is the need to be right, and the corollary, to make everybody else wrong. I sum it up in one of my yet-to-be-famous acronyms.
RAMBO: Righteousness Always Manages to Blame Others
Like the fictional hero, self-righteousness shows up with guns a-blazing for any who dare question it. This is so in the world, this is so in society, and it’s so in interpersonal relationships.
Think of Christmas time when relatives come to visit with their children, habits, and opinions. It’s often a rampage of righteousness, and a perfect chance to practice the fifth pathway…and all the others, too.
Did it bother you when I said “Christmas” instead of “holidays” above? Did you feel the need to correct me, or cancel your subscription? Congratulations! You just got your first opportunity to use the fifth pathway.
Whenever you have the urge to get even or project blame for your upset, it’s a signal that you have programming that you can change.
Some people carry self-righteousness to the extreme. They claim virtue when they blame people they don’t know for the suffering (real or imagined) of other people they don’t know.
Can you imagine anybody silly enough to do something like that?
TO READ ABOUT THE OTHER “Pathways”, Click Here: https://www.transformationmag.com/author/gsanderson/
Gregg Sanderson is author of Spirit With A Smile, The World According To BOB. He is a licensed practitioner in the Centers for Spiritual Living, and a Certified Trainer for Infinite Possibilities. His earlier books were, What Ever Happened To Happily Ever After? and Split Happens—Easing The Pain Of Divorce. His latest project is the New Thought Global Network, where subscribers can enjoy the best in New Thought presentations from anywhere at any time. You can see it at www.newthoughtglobal.org.
