The Grasshopper offered this yesterday as I was lamenting my woes to the ethers: “Your biggest problem is you.”

After a bit of reflection, I knew what the message meant. The “you” being referred to is the you that you made up and got comfortable with.

We have all made up our “you.” Some of us are more deeply invested in this image of ourselves than others, but the practice of thinking we are our image causes all sorts of problems.

When we think we are this “you,” anything that doesn’t comport with our image is immediately dismissed. “I’m not like that” or “I never do that” are some of the denials that come out of sticking to our image.

Another part of the “you” we deny is how our conditioned patterns are contributing to our problem. We desperately want to attribute the problem to something out there – “It’s certainly nothing I’m doing.”

Yes, for the most part, our patterns are our problems. We just don’t take the time to notice them or, God forbid, take responsibility for them.

If you retrace your steps to where you are now, you will see a repeating set of patterns that took you here. “Why does this always happen to me?” is really an easy question to answer. Just retrace your steps and you’ll trip over all the patterns that got you here.

Have you ever heard a middle aged adult say, “I was stricken with diabetes”? As if it came out of the blue and had nothing to do with what they did up to that point to contribute to their disease. My absolute favorite denial of responsibility is hearing a professional golfer say, “My putter wasn’t working today.” I never heard a bricklayer say, “My trowel wasn’t working today.”

Problem solving begins when we stop defending who we are. It’s better to notice who we’ve become as a result of the patterns of behavior that aren’t working for us, and recognizing the false image we’ve created.

You are your biggest problem. Perhaps it’s time to go to work on you, rather than looking out there to find out how you got in this stew.

All the best,

John