A new year and a new you? Start here.

Previously Published on Medium

What happened to you wasn’t your fault.
Staying after you understood it was.
No one owes you sympathy for the life you keep choosing.

You don’t have to know you’re the problem for the pattern to exist. Most people don’t. They just notice that the same things keep happening. Different relationships end the same way. New jobs turn sour for familiar reasons. The details change. The outcome doesn’t. At that point, it isn’t bad luck anymore. It’s participation.

If this isn’t about you, then who is it about? Bad relationships, jobs that drain you, money problems that never quite resolve, the same arguments with different people, addictions you understand and still repeat, environments you complain about but protect, risks you knew were reckless, comforts you chose over change.

This is where repetition stops being coincidence. When the same outcome keeps showing up, sometimes with different names and faces, sometimes with the very same people, responsibility has already shifted. You don’t have to understand why it’s happening for it to be yours. You only have to keep participating. Patterns don’t need permission. They only need tolerance.

Relationships are where this becomes unavoidable. Some people stay while being diminished. Others stay while doing the diminishing. Both know more than they admit. The arguments repeat. The apologies repeat. The lines get crossed, defended, crossed again. Sometimes the roles are clear. Sometimes they rotate. Either way, the pattern is familiar long before it’s finished. One side tolerates what should end. The other learns what will be allowed. Neither is confused. Both are participating. And participation, repeated long enough, is a decision.

Work is no different. People don’t usually end up in places that drain them by accident. They stay. They stay because the paycheck is steady, because leaving feels irresponsible, because starting over feels humiliating. They have friends there, mostly because they’ve already given years they don’t want to admit were wasted. The complaints become routine. The resentment becomes background noise. Eventually the environment learns what will be tolerated. So does the person inside it. At that point, it isn’t a bad job. It’s a chosen condition.

Money and stability don’t behave the way people pretend they do. Extra cash doesn’t fix bad habits. It feeds them. A little more room, a little less pressure, and the damage has space to grow. On the other side, bad habits don’t stay contained. They erode stability, drain resources, and turn temporary relief into long-term strain. Cause and effect blur because they reinforce each other. At some point, it doesn’t matter which came first. What matters is that the loop is being maintained. You are the cause and the effect.

Habits are where choice hides best. Most people don’t wake up deciding to ruin themselves. They repeat what soothes them. What distracts them. What takes the edge off. Over time, relief turns into routine, and routine turns into dependence. By then, the damage is familiar enough to feel manageable. The habit isn’t in control. It’s being protected. And protecting what harms you is still a decision.

Comfort is the most defended choice people make. Not happiness. Not growth. Comfort. The familiar pain, the manageable dissatisfaction, the version of life that doesn’t demand risk or exposure. Discomfort gets labeled as danger. Change gets framed as irresponsibility. Over time, avoiding discomfort becomes a principle instead of a preference. That’s when staying starts to feel virtuous. And stagnation learns how to justify itself.

Look in the mirror before you look for someone else to blame. Not metaphorically. Honestly. Because at some point, the common factor stops being circumstance and starts being you. I know this because I’ve lived on the other side of that mirror. I’ve made the same mistakes. I’ve stayed where I shouldn’t have. I’ve blamed timing, people, situations when the truth was harder to face. I’m not exempt from any of this. I’m also not special. If I can look inward and admit where I’ve failed, where I’ve caused damage, where I’ve chosen comfort over honesty, then anyone can. Self-examination doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you accountable. The flaws don’t disappear. You just lose the lie that you don’t see them.

The only thing keeping your life the same is you.