"I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast."
-- Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Now there's a thought! A statue of Responsibility - perhaps our new President should consider this for one of the public works projects we will be funding. Alcatraz might be an interesting choice - kind of a "take a look at what you are creating" message. Heck, maybe we could even place a few of the more deserving financial felons in residence there.
OK - perhaps incarcerating those in the spotlight misses the main point here: who is responsible for this mess anyway?
After all, this is America and there must be someone to blame, someone to sue. Couldn't be me, that's for sure.
Unless, of course, it could.
That's the point of this post and a several more to follow: How am I, how are you responsible for the current situation in which we find ourselves?
It seems that over the past couple of decades, we have allowed ourselves, and therefore our country and its institutions, to drift away from some fundamental qualities of responsibility and accountability.
If this isn't immediately clear, I can understand. After all, we have become such a blame-focused society that a person can injure themselves and still take some kind of righteous stance that someone else is to blame and someone else should pay.
How about the person who ordered a cup of coffee, presumably wanting the coffee to be hot, managed to spill it on themselves, and then wound up suing the vendor because the coffee was, well, hot? And they won!
I mean if you can get what you want, misuse it, hurt yourself in the process, blame someone else for your own choices and actions, and still wind up being compensated for your own irresponsible behavior, how can we be surprised at the mess we currently find ourselves in?
Don't get me wrong - we all know there are bad guys out there doing bad things. The point of this article is not to defend the wrong doers.
However, the point is to underscore that each of us has our own responsibility for our own circumstances. Common usage has the word responsibility meaning something akin to blame, fault, or cause. I like to think of the word as being made up of two words - "response" and "ability" or "having the ability to respond."
We can use the notion of "having the ability to respond" as a way to look back at circumstances to determine how we got here in the first place. What role did I play? What choices did I make? Did I create this situation out of my own direct actions? Did I promote this situation out of a less direct but still involved set of actions? Or did I allow this situation out of my own inactions - I saw it coming and didn't do anything about it?
These are pretty empowering concepts if you take them to heart and look deeply at your role in creating your current circumstances.
How many of us have ever overextended ourselves financially? We knew we couldn't afford it and yet we bought it anyway? That could range from the smallish item we put on our credit cards to the house we couldn't afford but wanted to pretend would work out somehow.
Sure, there are all manner of folks out there who are willing to help us live out our self deceptions. You can call these folks credit card companies, bankers, loan brokers, real estate agents, etc. Some of these people are fine human beings - moral, ethical, and willing to help. Others are less scrupulous, all too willing to escort us into financial difficulty through any number of inappropriate financial devices.
However, none of these people or institutions can escort us where we don't wish to go.
A great opportunity is upon us individually and as a nation - the opportunity to take a more active, response-able, and involved role in creating and owning our future. However, we won't get too far into an improved future if we don't take stock of how we got here in the first place.
I know it is fashionable to blame the Bush fables for our current circumstances. However, who chose to believe these fables in the first place?
So, I suggest taking a look at your current situation and simply ask yourself: how did I Create, Promote or Allow this in my life? You may find it useful to read a previous post on how you can move from being a victim to being accountable for your life circumstances.
Today's article asks you to become accountable for your current life circumstances by examining your own role in creating them. Hopefully, this will help you create an even better set of circumstances going forward.
Next week, we will look at responsibility and accountability from a future focused point of view: How are you responsible to the current situation?
We are all aware of circumstances surrounding us right now, circumstances that impact friends, families and strangers. Even if you are not responsible for these circumstances, they are here nonetheless.
So, unless you want to become or remain a victim of these circumstances, the question will become how are we responsible to these circumstances? How can we become part of the solution we might all prefer?
Blessings to you!
You can find out more about Russell Bishop at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com. Contact Russell at: russell@lessonsinthekeyoflife.com
The author of Lessons in the Key of Life, Russell is an Educational Psychologist, professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California.
Follow Russell Bishop on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Russell_Bishop
I'm not blaming him solely, the idiots who thought he was great are just as guilty.
Please note that I'm not condoning any aspect of a legal system that insists puts anyone through the kinds of insanity as this coffee represents. I'm just advocating that our world would be a whole better off if we could take just a bit more personal response-ability for our actions and weave in large doses of compassion, understanding, acceptance, caring and loving.
For an even more eyeopening experience, try Viktor Frankl.
Thanks again for offering your thoughtful commentary. I truly do appreciate it.
Blessings to you.
Do not throw shoes.
We have a long road to walk.
You will need them.
If we walk together, we ALL might end up with new shoes.
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote: "If you were to put the world to rights, with whom would you begin? Yourself of others?"
My suggestion is that we each address what we can and then begin to extend our circle of involvement and our circle of influence.
Blessings to you.
Bishop has us picking up the pieces of this cyclical mess. We have to get at the root of the problem. We must take the power to create our money back from the Fed and return it to our government. The Fed is 9 board members appointed by the U.S. President. The rest is a cartel comprised of private member banks. As we are experiencing now, private banks only look out for themselves by stealing 8.5 trillion of our dollars to bail out its member banks. They get to buy up the failing banks for pennies on the dollar—your dollars.
We need to get off of the fractional reserve system. This system created the massive debt bubble that is bursting right now. Without the massive tax burden of paying interest to the Federal Reserve, Americans would be able to stimulate the economy with all that money the Fed takes through Federal Income Taxes. Yep, that money goes to pay the interest on the money loaned to us by the Fed.
Google movies that will explain this corrupt system: The Money Masters and Money As Debt
it's just so liberating....
those who are responsible for this mess are those who take responsibility for it....
not the ones necessarily who created the mess, but those who are willing to stop believing in pretty dreams for a moment and are willing to let the truth in...
Lies are always much easier to believe in than the truth, because they require no risk, and they are so very comforting..
But now is not the time for that....it's not the time to feel good, but a time to let oneself feel bad...and take a good look in the mirror as the veil is torn away to reveal the cold hard facts.....
to take responsbility for this, takes guts and courage, and that is our only hope...
I am not perfect. I try my best. But I do look and see where I have not acted my best and acknowledge it.
I have an Indian yogini who said to me, "do your best and leave the rest" It is helpful especially when pondering too long about anything you can't change that has already happened.
I sure am lucky I don't drink coffee.
Thanks, Joyful,
Ed
In the short term, the failed leadership of Bush and the Republicans is obviously to blame.
However, Dubya did get elected, at least in 2004, so we the people have to share the blame for what has happened. There are those who opposed the incompetence and the corruption, but we all bear some of the responsibility for letting the GOP be elected to power.
After the collapse of 1929, no Republicans were elected to the presidency for twenty years, almost another generation, in 1952. I sincerely hope it will be longer than 20 years before we let them screw things up again. As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it - so, no more Republican presidents.
I can tell you my thoughts about why I think it is important to be careful who we vote into office.
If we had a pure democracy, we wouldn't have to worry about voting for representatives, since we would each be playing a role directly in government.
Since we have a democratic republic, wherein we elect representatives to act on our behalf, it becomes important who we chose to elect to the government. If someone thinks it makes no difference who we vote for, then that someone has no reason to become involved in the voting process, and is likely to stay home on election day.
I can see from some of the comments here, some people still want to find fault and/or assign blame or find a way to undermine a different way of seeing things.
Specifically Otay Panky........ a question to you...... what do YOU do for a living? And how much do you charge? Is that something you care to discuss in a public forum?
The people who blog here do not get paid in money for their contributions. We all do it out of a sense of service and a desire to make a difference. What is this axe you continuously grind with everyone about how much they get paid for doing what they do? What does that have to do with what any of us offers freely here?
What are you contributing to the world in this time of possibility besides trying to shoot down others? Frankly, I find it boring and extremely unproductive. If you really stand for contribution given freely, then let's hear something back from you that expands the conversation and opens new possibilities. So far, we've only heard your one channel agenda. Got any others?
If you're sincere about looking for wisdom, try tuning in to what's being offered here rather than being right about what you already think you know.
Russell, Anne and others, keep on keeping on,
Judith
I make my living writing copy for a percentage of royalties and investing. For 30 years I was in IT, both on the corporate and consulting sides of the business.
I'm smart enough to know marketing when I see it - and you, and Russell and others aren't here to give selfless service but to MARKET. You're all looking to find clients for your life coaching and therapy businesses.
When a materialistic society tries to monetize the essentially spiritual act of supporting others, it's just not good. Those aren't just my opinions. You get the same opinions from Lao-Tzu, the Buddha and Jesus.
Instead of friends, people have therapists and life coaches. And those who are not wealthy simply can't afford to pay the freight. And - worst of all - people get used to the meme that somehow they can't figure out their own business more or less by themselves. They need experts to tell them how to do everything.
Right now we're going through the most massive de-leveraging of society since the Great Depression. People are getting back to basics, and trimming the fat out of their personal budgets. It's the natural cure for the excesses we've been living with post WW II. And one of those excesses is the excessive therapization of our culture.
Back to you...
It's nice to hear something about you, personally. Thanks for sharing.
I can't speak for anyone else's motives for why they blog. I do it because I love writing and sharing ideas and for the pure joy of the exchange with people, even people like you, Otay. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, but making room for all points of view without making others wrong for theirs.
My observation of you is that you seem to get a lot of satisfaction out of taking "pot shots" from the sidelines. I just wonder how you think that serves? If your point is to undermine the credibility of what is offered here, we hear your point of view. You've made it very clear. You have every right to share that point of view.
Is there anything else you'd like to contribute?
If you're up to playing a big game with your life, and I get that you are, please do share with us what you're doing, how it's going, how you see the world and what's possible. This is a forum, which costs nothing to visit, for people, in the spirit of community, coming together to help make life better for all of us.
I feel sorry that your cynicism blinds your ability to trust that anyone could both be a professional and a selfless servant at the same time. There really is another possibility beyond the way you have it wired.
All the best to you, Otay!
Judith
Thanks for bringing us back to this fundamental principle. I guess it can't be repeated too many times. What seems to fall through the cracks however, is there is the "conventional" interpretation of responsibility, in which someone or something is always to blame. In this paradigm, to accept responsibility then shifts the blame to one's self.
What you're talking about is the "no fault- no blame" version of responsibility, which is neither a truth or a fact. It's simply a place to stand (as in, a choice we make) from which we have access to freedom, power and creativity. There is no cheese down the tunnel of victim/blame. No place to go with that model except self-pity and excuses for not having life work.
More in the next comment,
Judith
I, too, can raise my hand. I know that I can do better. Acknowledging that 'there is more to do,' and that we can do better, for me, is a first step towards resolution. The next, gets down to specifics. What are the specific steps and actions I can take in order to create a better relationship between myself and my world today? Today, I ask myself: in this present interaction, what can I do to make a difference? What can I do to honor the amount of resources available, and not overextend?
Thanks, Russell, for another chance to review the well-dones, and not so well-dones on my own ledger and move toward better!
Blessings and appreciation,
Cara
I agree with you and think many people now feel that, since we did all the hard work to put Obama in office, we can now sit back on the couch, watch the sound bytes of how "HE" is doing to fix our country, and not bother to change our habits much. Then of course, everyone stands ready to point a finger if change does not come about.
I agree it is time to look at how we are all responsible, and how we are also so quick to judge or pounce on our leaders for their efforts.
I look forward to hearing your follow up.
Thanks
Kari
That mindset is both disempowering and bad for your health. Fernando Gonzolez, Ph.D., a nationally recognized neuropsychcologist ,states "The number one cause of stress is feeling out of control." Recent studies at the University of Kentucky show that stress may make the brain more quickly. Numerous other research shows that stress weakens the immune system, increases blood pressure and creates sleep disorder.
As soon as you take responsibility you reclaim your control over the situation.
Thank you for reminding us that we create, promote and allow everything in our lives!
I don't believe in blaming victims for the misfortunes that befall them. This is a sickness in this country. Find a balance. The vast majority of people do take responsibility for their lives, and even when they have been wronged they frequently suffer in silence because they don't want to be publicly ridiculed.
===
In that case, when I start to look for a life coach at $200 per hour to tell me how to live my life, I won't be contacting you.
I remember one trial I was on where a majority of the jurors voted the first time to award millions of dollars to a plaintiff, and to find fault with the doctor. After much discussion, those of us in the minority convinced the majority that their logic was wrong, and we ended finding against the plaintiff. (By the way, in the type of trial of which you speak, it takes only 9 out of 12 jurors to award damages, whereas it takes 12 out of 12 to find a person guilty of a crime.) I thought it was sad that the reasoning of some of those who still wanted to award damages was not that the doctor had erred, but simply that the doctor had insurance, and the plaintiff could use the money. It is tempting to award damges under these circumstances, but it would not have been the right thing to do.