Yesterday I wrote my Tool for Tuesday: It’s Your Own Fault. That post reminds us all that blame keeps us wallowing in the past. It is impossible to move forward when we keep replaying the lament about what we didn’t get from our parents.

But today’s post is the opposite message. Think of the expression, The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

You’re the apple. Your family is the tree. If your family tree sick and hurtful and miserable and anger and bitter…If people in your family shame you and blame you and name you as selfish and rotten, if they tell you that their problems are your fault, and if you only did this or if you only did that…if they don’t want you to live a happy and healthy life without taking care of them…Well, then fall as far from the tree as possible.

Fall far and keep rolling. You don’t have to stick around, even if they tell you that blood is thicker than water, that you have a family obligation, that you’re a terrible child, a terrible person. You don’t have to keep staying stuck in an attempt to make other people feel better.

If you choose a different life from your family, you don’t have to be an apple lying at the root of a sick tree.

Choose a different life for yourself. Write a different ending to your story. You can live your best chapter even if those you love remain stuck.