I take total responsibility for improving my life.

Responsibility and blame get filed in the same drawer, and they shouldn't be. You didn't cause the flat tyre on the way to work. You're still the one crouched on the verge in good clothes, changing it.

Most of what shapes a life arrives that way — unearned, unrequested, and yours to handle regardless. The family you were given. The economy in the year you graduated.

Taking it on isn't an admission of fault. It's declining to wait for whoever did cause it to come back and put it right.