Is it my fault for being long term unemployed for 3 years

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I know this is a question only I can I answer but a part of me says Yes and another says No. I am in a job now just part time for 2 and half years in a shop selling books, toys, arts and crafts and stuff but I do aspire to work in other places that sells mainly books. I know what the routine of a working habit is but I do sometimes feel like between 2012 and 2016 like I wasn't trying hard enough to get the job I'm in now maybe in 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012, I went to numerous employment courses by my local job centres, went to numerous interviews and many didn't want to hire me. I also feel like I was being too picky, I also had to deal with moving house when this was going on and moving somewhere in a different county and sign up for work there when at the time I had never grown up there, didn't know places well and obviously the changes to routines was at times stressful for me. I was offered an interview for a job in a store I'm working in now a couple of years before but I cancelled it at first thinking I wouldn't make it and then phoned them back saying I come to the interview when they probably terminated my application and I do beat myself up for it thinking if I hadn't said I couldn't make the first time then maybe I would had the job I'm working in now 2 years before. I do get quite envious of those particularly younger than me (29) having gone to university and finished whereas I didn't finish and got jobs and careers they've aspired to do for example I have a cousin who's 23 or 24 who is a law graduate and now a solicitor.

No and yes. There are not enough jobs to go around now, so employers filter out even minor variants.

Sometimes i reflect on my late teens and early 20s when I was unemployed and I shake my head. Now I hold a steady full-time admin job I can't imagine deliberately not working.

But back then I just couldn't cope with a job. I should have gone to Uni too, but I was from a small town and the thought of travelling to the city everyday scared me. It would have been easy. Just 45min by train.

Looking back it would have been so easy.

But I didn't have the confidence and experience I have now.

And neither did you. All you did was the best you could.

It doesn't matter what we did in the past. What matters is what you do going forward.

I always fancied working in a bookstore.

Depends on how you look at it. If you want someone tho blame, then you are the only reasonable choice for that. However, I'd say that these days many unemployed people are in their situations despite doing their best. There just aren't enough jobs, or more like there aren't enough people who'd pay others for doing them, which often leads to everything biling up on a few workers and them getting a burn out.

I'd say that if you've done and are doing your best then you don't need to beat yourself over it. There are some who are unemployed simply because they're lazy, barely putting any effort in, but they're a minority, at least among the people I know.