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Macro Responsibility
Last week we talked about
responses.
The word of course comes from responsibility. We hear a lot about responsibility today. What does it mean to be responsible? It is a responding to someone or something. So all of our lives are a series of responses, some meaningful, some confused and disjointed. For example, a response to someone shouting could be to shout back, but this is not a very productive response, as it will lead only to a lot more shouting. A better response might be to reason. If there is violence or a refusal to reason then a good response is to walk away. In another circumstance this may show a lack of responsibility, for example when someone’s in distress. A good response then is to help. Sometimes silence is the perfect response. It creates space for the other to hear what they’re actually saying. It can break the loop of tip-for-tat argument. When used as a weapon it is a very poor response.
A response is never simply a passive thing. When we respond we do something. It’s not just about answering someone, the common meaning. We are engaging. Therefore responsible also means behaving in a certain manner. We’re all told we have to be ‘responsible’ nowadays. Responsible for our lives, for our actions, for the development of the planet, and so on. But what does it really mean to be responsible?
In what way are you responsible for your life? Paying your way in the world, having a job, being kind to people, looking after the environment, trying to improve yourself, self development, knowing your boundaries, not engaging in unlawful activities, being temperate, treating others with respect (a sister word), not whining and acting like a child. There are as many responses as there are people to make them. And customs change. What may have been deemed irresponsible in our parents' day may not be so any more. For example ‘girls are to be seen not heard'. Today’s youth would say explain.
Hello!
Different generations different responses. It doesn’t make one more right than the other, just different.
What does being responsible mean for you? That’s what’s important, not what the general consensus is, so think about it awhile before answering.
Responsible (able to respond, or Sible’s answer! joke)
Just like
unconscious
responsible is a word you hear bandied about a lot today. Another one is vibrating, we’re told we have to be vibrating at the right frequency all the time. Some people think they’re ready to vibrate off the planet. Notice we have all these words or catch phrases we use and we think we know what they mean. It’s as if we’re picking up words and phrases and repeating these without really knowing what they mean. We are using meaningful terms often in a meaningless way. Take time out to listen to how people talk. People speak first and think later. Then they try to shore up their half formed ideas with more disjointed words. They desperately employ ‘like’ in a vain effort to get them out of the embarrassing situation. Like is fast becoming the most popular word in the English language, outstripping the ubiquitous I. Like means a fondness for something, or in some cases a resemblance. It is not really a comparison. Today it is used as a conjunction and in just about every other part of the sentence. It would be nice if we could become responsible for our responses.
Macro Responsibility
Here’s an interesting one to try on:
I am responsible for all of my life. Not just for some of it.
How does that sound in your head? It can be a bit daunting to take on at first. It can also seem rather unfair. How do we explain physical or mental disability? Failure to make the sports team? To get into the Ivy League college, and a host of other things. Now these things can be explained away of course. It wasn’t meant to be.
Ok.
You didn’t get it because something better was waiting for you.
Maybe.
Or it wasn’t meant for you.
Less convincing.
Too often they are just used as an excuse.
Responsibility is acknowledging that everything that happened in our lives, whether we asked for it or not, happened. And we were there when it did, so we accept that as what is. This is the conscious, awakened approach to life. And it is the same thing with our lives in general. We are responsible for coming in, obviously, because we chose that, but then shit happens, and I don’t think we planned it all. But if we can say at any point in our life looking back, well I was there, I showed up, so I do take responsibility for it, then I think we have reached an awakened state. We have an awareness of where we are in our world.
This is what I call macro responsibility. Responsibility for the overall totality of our lives. You’re not responsible for all the crap you know!
Responsibility on a Metaphysical Level
Being responsible has two parts. The first of these is positioned at the dawn of your life and the second is now. Let’s use an illustration: suppose you decide to go to India. You make your plans, get your airline ticket and set out. That’s a decision you made, you’re responsible for that decision. If the plane crashes on route or you get robbed when you arrive in New Delhi that’s something else that happened. If may be something completely outside your control and it is hardly fair to hold you responsible for it. But in some way it was part of the decision making. I mean although you didn’t intend it you chose to be on that plane at that time. If we grumble after the event we’re saying life should be different. We’re rejecting life really, which is our life. So in a way we’re rejecting ourselves. We’re being ungrateful to ourselves. Well, I didn’t cause the plane crash you remonstrate. No, but did anyone force you to get on it either? If I’m in an accident and it wasn’t my fault then it wasn’t my fault.
I still showed up though!
For me responsibility is acknowledging you chose to incarnate in this place at this particular time. You choose to make the journey. It doesn’t mean that other stuff won’t happen that you didn’t plan for, but that’s ok. Just acknowledge that it happened and don’t look around for someone else to blame.
The Politics of Blame
There is a very thin line between responsibility and blame. The first we could say is when something, anything happens, the second when we deliberately caused it. I was discussing the difference between responsibility and blame with a friend one night and she said I was splitting hairs really. It’s very easy for the two of them to get entangled, especially in the kind of close knit social groups we have organised ourselves into. Clearly we need boundaries. Responsibility extends to how we treat the most vulnerable people in our world. When a child is condemned to begging on the street we all ought to feel shame. Where are the parents we ask? They have responsibilities. But often they don’t want to or they’re not able to cope. So society must step in. Our boundaries can paralyse us here. That and an innate tendency we have to look for someone else to shoulder the ‘problem’. I like David Cameron’s Big Society. We all need to do something and it needs to start with me. Responsibility is a big thing that the world needs to learn now. If we don’t we’re heading for trouble. When we pump all the fuel out of the earth and make the water angry we create several Fukushimas. And that means we’re responsible for the deaths of thousands. Not a nice thought when you’re wrapping up warm in bed at night.
We need another kind of, like, response.
return from macro responsibility to the home page
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