How To Be (Truly) Responsible. Cultivating responsibility without resentment is key to navigating this moment of extreme change. I’m coming to learn relatively late in life that I was never taught how to take responsibility. What I understood about it was gleaned from my environment — primarily the expectations of parents, teachers, bosses, and a system that wanted me to conform in convenient ways then, and still does.
This is a beautiful reflection on "how we go on..." In my own exploration of responsibility, I've pondered the idea of "taking" responsibility, experimented with the idea of claiming or welcoming responsibility, and wondered if it might be more enlivening to abandon the noun and stay with a form of the verb--responding / being responsive / cultivating responsiveness. Whatever we call it, it seems imperative to find our way with the vibrancy of responsive living. It may be that some of our confusion around responsibility is related to our focus on outcomes rather than experience. Our experience of a less than satisfying or even tragic outcome is ours to hold with tenderness and compassion...to convert that experience to learning and the learning to wisdom. By doing so, we disrupt our tendencies to relish the roles and embellish the storylines of victim, hero and villain. We learn the distinction between being victimized and victimhood and how responsibility is not something we divide...as in, this is my piece and that's your piece. It's all mine and it's all yours, and whether you claim yours is not up to me. The question is do you want to feel fully alive and embodied, free of burden, fault and blame?
This is a beautiful reflection on "how we go on..." In my own exploration of responsibility, I've pondered the idea of "taking" responsibility, experimented with the idea of claiming or welcoming responsibility, and wondered if it might be more enlivening to abandon the noun and stay with a form of the verb--responding / being responsive / cultivating responsiveness. Whatever we call it, it seems imperative to find our way with the vibrancy of responsive living. It may be that some of our confusion around responsibility is related to our focus on outcomes rather than experience. Our experience of a less than satisfying or even tragic outcome is ours to hold with tenderness and compassion...to convert that experience to learning and the learning to wisdom. By doing so, we disrupt our tendencies to relish the roles and embellish the storylines of victim, hero and villain. We learn the distinction between being victimized and victimhood and how responsibility is not something we divide...as in, this is my piece and that's your piece. It's all mine and it's all yours, and whether you claim yours is not up to me. The question is do you want to feel fully alive and embodied, free of burden, fault and blame?