All beings are the owners of their actions. This is our reality check, because the suffering of the world is too much for us to solve entirely. There are limits on our time and our energy, and we have no control over other people.

"Then there’s also the reflection on equanimity: All beings are the owners of their actions. This is our reality check, because we realize that the suffering of the world is just too much for us to go out and solve entirely. There are limits on our time and our energy, and we have no control over other people. After all, people are going to be happy, they’re going to suffer, based on their actions. Even in a small group of people, you can’t get everybody to agree on what the path to happiness is going to be. Or even if they do agree, you can’t get everybody to practice the way you think they should practice. The world is going to go its way. We can either make that a source of suffering or we can decide that we have to accept that fact and then focus on what we can accomplish.

After all, the Buddha couldn’t teach everybody. There were lots of people who would listen to him and didn’t agree and went off their own way. But he did something really remarkable. Instead of letting that get him down or depressed, he realized that at least he could be a good example in showing people how to find true happiness. If other people followed the example, that was fine. He’d be happy to explain how to do it, to talk about the difficulties that he’d encountered and how he’d overcome them, to give people encouragement."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Good Example for the World"

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