The tendency of modern people is to blame others for your situation. While the choices of others absolutely affect your situation, much of what is done by others lies outside of your control.
There is absolutely no benefit in focusing on things you can’t change. It causes extra suffering and limits joy. It is far easier and more beneficial to be realistic about what you can change and focus your efforts on that.
Be responsible for your life and what you use it for. Don’t blame other people for things that are your fault. Don’t suffer needlessly for things you can prevent. If you wish to improve, the place to start is by asking what you personally could do differently to obtain a better outcome.
The best way to develop a better life is to become a better person. Joy comes through who and how we are, not what happens to us. Those who seek a better life in spite of who they are will never find it, because a better life can only come through becoming a better person. Those who seek to feel better without becoming better use experiences and insincere posturing to distract themselves from who they are, but vicarious virtue and proxy prosperity will never yield what is sought in them.
Unfortunately, few people want to feel better by becoming better. They do not want to be good, which requires change. Instead, they want to feel good, which is all about avoiding evidence that they aren’t actually good. Almost all people will do almost anything to avoid greater awareness—whether it is of better outcomes than they already have, or better visibility of imperfections they possess, as yet known or not.
No one would publicly admit that they hate improvement. Instead, they manifest this attitude through their feelings and actions. People tend to hate having their choices, actions, beliefs, and words questioned. They say they want to be better, but hate when others point out something better than what they think, do, or feel. They want more and better than what most people have, but they also don’t want to fight conventional wisdom. At some point, each person has to decide which they want more, because whenever what you want is mutually exclusive, you’ll either have to choose one of the options above the other, or have none.
To feel good about yourself, you first have to be willing to feel bad about yourself. The best character will yield the greatest joy long-term, but will require you to do things that make you feel bad in the shortterm. The need to feel good now will keep you from developing and maintaining the best character qualities, because being a good person requires you to do difficult things. Most people feel worse when their shortcomings are exposed, but this need only be the case as long as you have not yet discovered that it is best to be best.
Much of the pain that comes from correction is due to an unfounded attachment to who you are in preference to who you could be. You can instantly minimize this pain by choosing to associate yourself with the improvement you seek rather than the qualities you seek to leave behind.
Whatever cost is associated with improvement is always worthwhile when prioritized against other potential improvements. As long as you are making the greatest possible progress, the challenge of change is more than worth the cost.
Change requires pain, but staying the same in the face of a needed change causes much greater pain. The pain of a necessary change unmade will endure and fester and grow until you choose to experience the pain of change. Why delay?