Life Invaders 3: Return of Responsibility
Being responsible is one of those concepts whose meaning changes drastically as life goes on. For most middle-class children, for example, responsibility is first introduced when they’re old enough to receive a toy. Parents leave it to them to not break, lose, swallow or fashion a murder weapon out of the toy. Time goes on and as they’ve matured a few years later, responsibility extends past their own belongings and into a more communal aspect like doing chores around the house. Then after that, it might mean looking after another life in a minimal sense, such as taking care of a hamster or being sure to look after the new younger sibling at school. High school comes around and responsibility turns into grades, maybe a part-time job, and that old sex n’ drugs thing. College, while still very much about sex n’ drugs becomes about responsibility for one’s future, then it’s an adult job, then it’s a family and so on.
Depending on who you are, you might be behind, on pace with, or ahead of the schedule throughout your whole life. You might fuck things up as a kid and then right the ship in your 30s. Or you might be too responsible as a kid and by your 20-year high school reunion, you’re the spectacular downward spiral that makes your old classmates feel better about their lives.
There is, however, a crossroads on the path of responsibility that nearly everyone takes a wrong turn at no matter how many times they find themselves there. Before I go there, however, I think it’s valuable to share with you the experience I had with a book I read recently. The book is called Busting Loose From the Money Game, written by Robert Scheinfeld.
But Busting Loose From the Money Game is hardly about money and more about our perception of reality. In short, Scheinfeld believes — backed by studies in quantum physics — that everything we experience in life is a hologram if you will. That every single thing you know, including me, dolphins, the sky and your parents, are mere projections coming from a reality that exceeds time and space. He states that we are all playing what he refers to as the “human game” and every limit we think that exists in our version of reality is really only there because our limiting beliefs have made them so — so not having enough money for example. Therefore, Scheinfeld makes it known immediately upon opening the book that the book itself is an invitation to overcome any limit you know in life because in it he shares a process that you can apply in any stressful situation. The trick is that the more you apply and come to believe in this process, slowly but surely the walls of life will be broken down and you will eventually be living in a utopia of sorts. I don’t want to share with you the entire process as I’d rather not reveal the whole core of the book — it’s better that you read it for yourself — but part of the process includes acknowledging any stress in your life as being manifested by you and your set of beliefs up until that point.
Now that probably sounds absolutely bananalands. But personally, I love this book. At first it pissed me off because I felt it was severely minimizing all significant relationships in my life — which it is — but in keeping pace with my little philosophy of hearing everyone out, I stayed with it, and I found a new and unexpected value in it, and to me, the value doesn’t have much to do with whether or not you believe what he’s saying, but it does have a lot to do with responsibility.
Entertaining ideas as outlandish as Scheinfeld’s is key for harvesting a more open mind towards all things in life. So after I got through reading this book, I was in a rhythm of trying to see things differently than I ever had before, the way that he preached things, so just questioning the reality of my world around me. And I really just felt like I was in a fucking video game. I felt like I was put into a video game in which I was the main character and every single thing I came in contact with was a reflection of how I’d lived my life up to that point, and every single thing I’d come in contact with going forward was dependent on any action I’d take. And looking at life in that way brought more importance and less coincidence to all things I crossed paths with.
What this really means is that I found myself responsible for everything regardless of how little it seemed as though I had to do with it in the first place, and this is precisely the direction that it’s so easy for people to walk away from when arriving at their crossroads. You see we like responsibility within reason. It feels nice to tell ourselves we’re responsible and it’s a point of pride to act responsibly towards that which we’ve deemed as our responsibility. We’re told that it’s right to stay in our lane and finish what we start. But transcending that is not what most people sign up for and that’s why blame and entitlement kick in in the face of that which we call “unfair”: getting laid off, having a tree fall on our house, or getting chlamydia from that trustworthy bar patron who swore they’d been tested last week. We pout and cry out, “But I did everything I was supposed to do! I followed all the rules! How could this happen?!”. Or depending on the situation sometimes we like to deflect responsibility and say “Eh it’s the government’s fault, we need to change the government” or “It’s in God’s hands”. That’s not very nice. I bet God doesn’t like that. And sure, if you’re part of the 99.9% of the world that doesn’t buy into Scheinfeld’s theory, then no, things like this aren’t a result of anything you’ve done, but they’ve been put into your life regardless and what happens next is up to you.
The trick is this, guys: for as much as we like reverting back to childhood and blaming others for our problems and giving up when “unfair” stuff happens to us, there’s an unexpected catharsis that comes with taking on more responsibility, because that brings us a greater sense of control over our own lives. This is not a matter of telling everyone else what to do and how to live their lives, but instead not shying away from things; not feeling fearful to engage in that what scares you and not giving your power away to an unknown something that you’d normally think could put you at risk for some kind of backlash.
Taking deliberate responsibility for things that aren’t a part of your plan gets you comfortable with the uncomfortable, and obtaining this fearlessness and courage to step away from your plan if need be, puts you back in the driver seat and helps you rise to the occasion of life. See a baby on someone’s doorstep? Don’t wait for them to find it, go fucking handle it. See someone getting bullied? Step in. Fucking handle it.
So the reason this is titled like a video game is that that’s my challenge to you for today. No, you don’t have to buy into what everything Robert Sheinfeld is saying, but get out there, broaden your horizons and pretend you’re in a video game in which this is all fake and everything in front of you is there because you put it there, it’s there for a reason, everyone and everything has the ability to guide you, and reacting to all of it properly, responsibly and attentively is the only way to level up.
