In a world of victim culture and blame it becomes a revolutionary act to let go of bitterness and resentment and take radical responsibility for you life.

In today's message we explore a very challenging insight from the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that I came across in Douglas Murray's new book, The War On The West.

If you are ready to find a way to a deeper experience of life and its possibilities then this is the episode for you.

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Well, Hey everybody.

Jonathan Doyle with you.

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We're going to go into something quite.

Well, when you first hear it, it's quite challenging.

And, uh, I think all of us like to be told that everything's

good and that we're good and that everything's gonna work out just fine.

We, uh, we like that.

I think there's enough difficulty and challenge in the world without being

told that there's more and more problems.

So today's message is going to be a challenging one.

For me and for all of us, I read this last night.

I've actually been reading through Douglas Murray's latest book, the war on the west.

I've you familiar with Douglas Murray?

He's a British public intellectual.

Uh, I've really enjoyed his previous two books.

Uh, the strange death of Europe and the madness of crowds.

He is.

Uh, a really cosmopolitan, highly educated guy, and you'll find

them all over the internet.

He's been on Joe Rogan, a whole bunch of different places.

Just one of those people that thinks deeply.

I'd say he's probably been trained in.

I guess rational sort of dialect Dickies is a logical structural thinker.

Um, so very good at rhetoric and argument and logical debates.

I really appreciate a lot of what he's been sort of sharing

over the last few years.

His latest book, the war on the west is basically referring to this kind of

vast self-loathing that has rolled out.

I look over a significant period of time and, uh, in the west in terms of.

All sorts of complex issues.

We are being taught to, I think in some ways, despise

our own history and tradition.

And I think his book speaks to the heart of that, but, uh, Let's not

go down that rabbit hole right now.

Some of you I know, will disagree with that thesis.

Some of you will be very supportive of it.

And, uh, you know, I guess that's the point, isn't it?

That one of the things that would be helpful in the world

at the moment is the ability to.

At least have a disposition to listen to other insights and ideas, even if

they're contrary to what we, uh, we know to be true, it's worth just listening

to understand another perspective.

I think that's something worth doing it doesn't mean

we agree with it or validated.

It just means.

We have the decency to listen to it.

And, um, you know, it's something that I've been working on over the years just

to actually try and deeply understand.

Where other people are coming from, particularly when they disagree

with me, I've got a long way to go.

Got a long way to go.

But you see in the book.

Uh, last night, I'm almost finished it, but he sort of, he

argues that at the root of a lot.

Of what we're seeing culturally is a deep kind of sense of resentment of.

Often I talk about the victim mentality that pervades the world,

and I think victim mentality.

Is highly destructive.

It's destructive of cultures.

It's destructive of self it's destructive of relationships.

Because it's, it does a few things.

Once we deeply down the rabbit hole with victim hood, we give

our power away immediately.

And as I always say, I'm not denying that there have been

historical injustices at times.

I'm not being flippant about it.

I know that those are very real things.

But once we really surrender ourselves to a victim mentality,

then our power is externalized.

And what Douglas Murray would say is that once we find an outward source

to blame, we exonerate ourselves from doing the hard work of basically living.

If you can point to an external force and say, that is the reason that I am unhappy.

That's the reason I don't have what I have.

Well, eventually, what do you do next?

I mean, what do you do next?

And this is what I want to get to.

He's actually quoting in the book, Friedrich nature.

One of the most influential figures of 19th century philosophy had a vast

impact in continental philosophy, particularly, um, as the national

socialist Nazi movement emerged.

A lot of Hitler's thinking was based.

Deeply on, I guess, on niches concept of the Uber mention.

And the Superman principles.

Uh, we don't need to go down that rabbit hole.

Nature was brilliant, but just extremely dangerous.

You know, he used to say on stage that guns don't kill people.

Ideas do.

And this is quoting nature because nature is trying to get to.

I guess part of what nature would say is that we need to take a

radical, radical, radical, radical responsibility for our lives.

That we need to accept the difficulty and pain and hardship of life and not

flinch from it, but actually accept that.

If we're going to fully, I guess, develop who we are.

Um, then we need to accept the difficulties of life.

Take powerful responsibility for our lives and press on now.

I know I've got such a diverse listenership.

I'm not endorsing niches philosophy per se.

Um, like a lot of things, you know, in life there's, there's some value, there's

some gold buried deep in some pretty challenging and a rather toxic ideas.

But let me just give you this.

He quotes him here and he sort of says, somebody must be to blame.

But you, this is nature, but you yourself are this somebody.

You yourself alone are to blame for it.

You yourself alone.

Are to blame for yourself.

I remember how I started saying this is going to be a tough episode.

You yourself are to blame for yourself.

Wow.

I know a whole bunch of you just lost your mind.

You're like, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Hang on.

What about people that are victims of abuse or trauma or violence,

you telling me that they are responsible for what happened to them?

Of course, they're not the cause.

That's absolutely not what I'm saying.

What needs is getting at is eventually as we look at the tapestry of our life.

No matter what's happened to us.

Eventually.

We have to take responsibility.

Let me give you an example.

I don't know if this is accurate and I'd love you to sort of email me or jump

across on the YouTube channel, leave some comments and tell me I'm crazy.

But.

When I had my accident in 2019.

I, uh, you know, it was a majorly physical it majorly.

Is that a word, I guess it is.

It was a, it was a massively, physically traumatic injury.

So I destroyed both arms shattered, multiple bones and, you know, in my,

in both wrists and they've got a whole bunch of metal in both sides and.

A whole bunch of other stuff.

And.

The process of recovery was utterly brutal.

It was months and months.

And just the pain and the rehab and the.

And just all the stuff that went with, and if anybody's been through

major injuries and surgeries, you know what I'm talking about?

It's a long road back, but you see the trauma had happened, right.

I didn't choose the trauma.

I didn't choose the accident.

The accident sort of chose me.

But my response to my recovery.

Was my own now.

Yes.

I had access to good people, but we sought out good people and I had to do

the hard work of physical rehabilitation.

So I, what I'm trying to do here is say yes, there was trauma.

Yes.

There was something I didn't choose, but I was responsible for the response

I made to the incident itself.

Eventually see, I could have sat around and said, well,

I'm not going to do anything.

You know, it's just too hard.

I'm just going to keep taking these tablets and sit here and do nothing.

And you see.

I think that's what nature is kind of alluding to here that.

Eventually.

Eventually in the path of life, we have to be responsible for our lives.

That doesn't mean we don't process the pain.

We don't, uh, you know, seek justice where necessary, but sooner or later, We

have to become responsible for ourselves.

I now know somebody listening to enjoy I'm responsible.

I'm an adult.

I'm talking about a deeper level here.

I'm talking about our responsibility for all outcomes.

You look at the work of someone like Jocko, Willink.

You may have heard of.

A us Navy seal commander wrote a couple of really important books on

leadership and strategy and, you know, has developed a huge following online.

Um, and his, he wrote a book called radical responsibility.

You know that.

What they.

Well, they sort of developed in special forces.

Was this idea that, that you had to be.

Radically responsible for every area of your life that you

couldn't blame someone else.

You couldn't pass it off for somebody else's problem.

If something broke down and went wrong.

Why did it go wrong?

Who was responsible?

How do we make sure it doesn't happen again?

So.

I think this runs contrary to the victim mentality that we're going through as

a culture, it's much easier to point to multiple reasons why we can't do X.

We can't have X it's the economy.

It's the government.

It's my wife.

It's my husband.

It's my kids.

I do it.

I struggle with it all the time.

I got to.

That's why.

You know, if this podcast had an audience of one, I would still

be listening to myself going.

Yeah.

Jonathan, listen to yourself.

This is good.

This is good.

You've got to put this into practice.

So.

I think my friends that the way forward.

It's to look at the areas of our life, where there is brokenness and pain.

And look at how we can step into responsibility for ourselves

in each of those areas.

Now, there will be a spiritual component.

There will be prayer.

Depending on your tradition, there could be all sorts of different

aspects on a spiritual level.

You know, we're not orphans, we're not cosmic orphans.

God wants to guide us and grow us through these systems.

There might be people, you know, it's seven 20 in the studio here today.

I was up at four.

I had a four 15 call with, uh, I got a spiritual director in the U S and

where I'm on the call here at 4:15 AM, because I've always tried to

seek out really good people to have.

Input to help me grow to help me take responsibility and step up and stand up.

So trust me, friends, if.

Uh, if you're hearing any blame or condemnation in this message

today, it's a, it's definitely.

It's accidental because I'm speaking to myself here about

this responsibility piece.

So.

I think that the rejuvenation of culture, of education, of family, life of personal

life of civic, life of the public square.

A lot of it's going to have to do with people going, you know what?

I ain't going to blame this or that or this system or that person any more.

I am going to take responsibility.

I'm going to be responsible for my life and my outcomes as best I can in

partnership with God in partnership with the universe, whoever we frame that.

And I'm going to keep going.

So friends, can I just ask you like, Is there an area of your life at the

moment where you are handing over power?

I've said this in many podcasts over the years.

Then let's hear it.

One more time from nature who says somebody must be to blame.

But you yourself are this somebody, yourself alone are to blame for it.

You yourself alone.

Uh, to blame for your self.

And when Marie unpacks this, when Douglas Maryann packs that idea, he says that

once you moved from resentment, once you moved from jealousy, once you moved

from blame, he says, what it does is it tends to unlock a huge amount of energy.

Because all that energy that's been focused on other people and

on other people causing problems.

Is suddenly released and unleashed into the world.

I really liked that idea.

I think it's a very powerful one that as we move from blame to

responsibility, this energy is unleashed.

All right.

That's it for me today.

Uh, let me know what you think.

Like if you think it's crazy, I hit the link here, come across to the

YouTube version and put a comment.

Cause I'm going to a YouTube version of this in a moment.

Or just email me direct jonathan@jonathandoyledotcodotcojonathanatjonathandoyle.co.

That's J O N a T H a n@jonathandoyle.com.

God, bless your friends.

Please make sure you've subscribed.

Go and check out all the other links.

My name's Jonathan Doyle.

This has been the daily podcast.

Andy, you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.