Taking Responsibility

• Have the courage to use your own understanding!
• Immanuel Kant

Some people seem to prefer being screwed up, and not take the blame.

Than to be successful, and take the credit.

This usually happens when people get the idea that they are unable to handle their own decisions. This is sort of like the definition of insanity: if you worry about who should have the responsibility, you are probably capable of handling it yourself.

This gift is ours, free, with no cost or obligation. If at any time making our own decisions does not offer its own reward, we can return this gift at any time. Manipulative, selfish, greedy operators are standing by.

This fear of responsibility is responsible for many of the stupid decisions people make about how they live their life. The well traveled path seems safer, since it is lined with signs indicating that many people have come this way before. This is only a bad thing if we don’t really want to take that path, but have chosen it simply because of all the signs. Choosing in this way becomes not our own choice, but a willingness to let Other People choose for us.

We are the only person who can decide what are our right choices. It’s not that we can’t listen to advice, it’s that we have to filter the advice according to the source, the intent, and the appropriateness.

When we make the choice, we have to take the responsibility. This is where many people draw back and give it up. Letting Other People choose for us lets us shift the blame if things go wrong. Is it really worth it? Living screwed up lives because, "It isn't our fault?"

After all, it is us who has to live the screwed up life.

One of the rewards of getting older is that we no longer have to cope with Other People having unavoidable control over us. If we act as though they still do, that is an illusion.

Once we reach adulthood, we have the responsibility for ourselves, whether we like it or not. No matter what lapses in your upbringing, or limitations we are struggling against, there is someone out there who overcame the same problems. By becoming the best they could be.

We are, ultimately, our own creation.