Ownership & Responsibility

When you own something, you take more responsibility for it.

Good morning!

Due to factors outside of my control, I had to purchase a new vehicle this week, and I chose to go with a used, “gas-guzzling” Jeep. I never thought I’d buy an American car, yet here I am.

There have actually been several things I noticed through the process of acquiring a new car; first off, even though I am extremely loyal and never really thought I am one for commitment issues, I will have to admit that only three hours after buying the car, I started getting cold feet; I began to question why on earth I decided to buy a car that has such poor fuel economy (compared to the Honda Civic, for example), why I even needed a car instead of a bicycle, etc.

Secondly, I realized that once you get over your fear of commitment and decide that you want to keep something long-term, your attitude changes towards it. Before buying the Jeep this week, I was using a different car under my dad’s name, and although I had a couple of slight annoyances, I never really bothered to fix them or even go so far as to buy a Bluetooth radio for it; on the new Jeep, however, there’s this sense of ownership that subconsciously reminds me that I own this car, and I alone am responsible for maintaining it, so I’ve been ordering parts nonstop to make it perfect.

See, when you take ownership of something, you baby it; you treat it with the utmost care and respect; like my neighbor, you stand outside on Saturday mornings and wash your cars every single week, because you like and appreciate them and want them to look good — not so others think well of you, but because you yourself are pleased with them looking clean; when something breaks in it, you fix it, because you know that the responsibility is ultimately yours, and nobody else is going to fix it or pay for it.

This is why renting, although it really is simpler and takes a load off of people, actually holds people back from being as responsible as they should or need to be because they’re not held responsible for fixing the house.

There’s a book I’ve been meaning to get around to called Extreme Ownership, which, if I got the right idea, basically talks about leadership in the same context of renting vs. ownership, where only the people that truly “own” their situations can exceed others and blow people’s expectations.

Let’s try to step it up and be more responsible; it will feel better in the end.

God bless you, have a great day!