Responsibility

Jose Burgos
Aug 8, 2017 · 4 min read

“With great responsibility comes great power, thus the more we choose to accept responsibility for our lives, the more power we will exercise over our lives” -Mark Manson

Let’s talk about fault versus responsibility. Two words that go hand and hand in many situations but represent two different thought processes. Let’s dive right in.

You may have lost your job. Even worst you may have lost your job because of someone else’s wrongdoing. You had no plan in place for this situation so you fall into a financial downhill slide. That descend down the hill brings on a brand new set of problems, you can’t pay your bills, you can’t pay to live; well…you can’t pay for anything. The pressure starts to build. I really don’t need to tell you what pressure of any kind can do to a situation — insert your favorite pipe bursting analogy here — but it never ends well, rarely ends well. Time in this state leads to depression. Depression brings along a collage of emotions that will repeatedly slap your self-conscious like a revolving door at a department store that you walked right into because you were recklessly laughing at a cat vs. dog meme on Instagram. Bitter, angry, sad and regretful; you have only one thing left to do in your mind; blame.

“If that (coworker) hadn’t screwed up none of this would have ever happened” -bitter;

“How dare my landlord ask for the rent on time; doesn’t he know I don’t have a job right now, he can go F himself he’s not getting a dime from me” -angry;

“I can’t believe I let myself get this low, what kind of loser am I?” (in my opinion the most dangerous) — sad;

“I should have been a better coworker, I should have been nicer to my boss. Why was I late so many times? I should have worked harder.” -regret;

All blame, just different shades of it. Our instincts trying to find who or what is at fault.

Although someone or something may be at fault for a situation only you are responsible for your actions, for your emotions. Fault is past tense; where responsibility is the present; it’s the decisions you make every moment, the ones being made right now. Sure it was the other employee’s fault that you were fired but it was your responsibility to find another job; another means of income. It’s not the police officer’s fault that a crime was committed nor was he there to witness it but it is his responsibility to defuse the situation and make the arrest. Being responsible for things that are not our fault is part of life.

Being responsible for situations; mainly of our problems; makes us better people. My oldest daughters mother for example -in a relationship that lasted five years in length and made us both parents for the first time- cheated on me for a good amount of time before it all dramatically came to the surface. I went through the blame game immediately; the emotional carousel. I hated her — good riddance, I don’t need you! I loved her — we can make this work, after all, we have a daughter together. I was blue — I can’t believe she would do this to us, how am I going to explain this to our daughter? Her cheating was her fault maybe even in part my fault but once I started taking responsibility for my emotions things started to get clear for me. It took me a while (I confess longer than it should have) but once I took responsibility for my actions, for my emotions, things started to improve, drastically. One of the worst situations in my life blossomed into the best situation in my life. Taking responsibility instead of sticking to who was at fault allowed me to move on; allowed me to forgive; allowed me to grow as a man, to give my now wife everything I have without making the same mistakes made in previous relationships.

I leave you with my final point. Most say it’s because of bad family habits that they’re so unhealthy; they swear it’s family genetics. Most say that their schedule is too busy to allow them to take care of their bodies for an hour a day. Most say that they have no money because “ a gym membership is too expensive” or “eating healthy is too expensive”. I use to be like most.I say most feel this way because it’s easier to blame, to find fault in something or someone; than it is to do the work; the work being to take responsibility for your actions, for yourself. Not doing the work now will more than certainly catch up to you later, usually just bringing on more work at a time you don’t need it. Stop searching for the fault in your problems and start searching for how to take responsibility for them, because only then will life open itself up to you and only then will you realize you’ve been wasting your time.

Written by Jose A Burgos

Inspired by Mark Manson and his writing.