Introduction
No doubt, you have heard of the expression “getting in your own way”. It seems like one of those expressions that’s been around forever, but it can be attributed to professional baseball player Steve Carlton, who said “You’ve gotta find a way to get out of your own way, so you can progress in life.”
It’s a quote that nicely sums up one of modern society’s biggest issues – that of self-defeating behavior.
“Author of his own misfortune” and “architect of his own demise” are further examples of expressions based on quotes by the Roman statesman Appius Claudius from 300 BC. More accurately, Claudius said, “Each man is the smith of his own fortune” and “each man is the architect of his own fate” but the message is clear – we have a choice to embrace positive behavior and reap its rewards, or to allow ourselves fall victim to self-defeating behaviors by literally, getting in our own way.
It’s easy to watch a TV program or movie and see quite plainly how the characters onscreen engage in behavior that does nothing but bring them pain and tragedy. In fact, often it seems like the more tragedy, the more popular the show.
Books, too, are a great source for stories of self-sabotage. William Shakespeare was perhaps the master of telling stories that involved characters whose lives were made miserable, or were even ended, by their own self sabotaging behavior. So no, there’s no blaming technology for this one.
What’s not so easy is to see how or why we behave in ways that do nothing but bring us pain and suffering yet continue to do so despite the fact. Where does the blame for such behavior lie? By the time you finish reading this report you may have a different answer to that question than you do now.
Watch the following videos
