03: The Case for responsibility.
“The moment that you are old enough to take the wheel, the responsibility lies with you.” J.K. Rowling
I started recording a podcast with a few close friends last week. I haven’t decided on the name yet, but the focus being issues that men should be tackling but for whatever reason, won’t. To kick things off, I decided to post a question on Facebook asking a simple question: “ “What should men be discussing in order to make them better men?” After a few funny responses, the topics became abundantly clear; responsibility and mental health.
Over the past few decades, people’s roles, usually defined by gender, were clearly laid out for everyone to see. Men were the breadwinners, the maintenance men, and the “bad guy”(more on this in another post). Women were the caretakers of the home and children, and the face of the family. In a good amount of families across America, this standard still holds true, but after WWII, many more women moved out of their domestic roles and into the blue collar and corporate roles. This coupled with many more men (especially men of color) being locked up, leaving women to assume both roles in the home. Are these the only reasons? Of course not, but lets for the sake of argument say that these are large influences on the makeup of the average American home. For more detailed stats on family makeup, click here.
I believe that people chose responsibility because for the first time probably in history, large groups of people don’t know what they should be responsible for. This creates several different issues for folks because who or what your responsible for dictates the direction and habits you should be following. If you are only responsible for yourself for example, then determining how you become the best possible version of yourself so that you can be the best possible person to your family and your community should be your end game. If you’re a parent or role model, then on top of the above, teaching youth how to achieve this should also be on the list. If you are a leader in your community or at your workplace, this means that your responsibility is not only to yourself and your ambitions but to the subordinates under you. Finding ways to lead by example and compassion are habits you need to learn.
“Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options; remove yourself from the situation; change it, or accept it totally. “ — Eckhart Tolle
The bottom line is this, pursuing your best self should always be the goal. You need to love yourself inside and out. In order to do that, you have got to sit down and figure out what you want to do with your life. Something that you will be proud of when it’s over and the people around you will be proud that they were around to witness. Failing to do this will result in the one thing that none of us want to be remembered for, mediocrity. Imagine someone saying this about you when you’re not around: “ He was an okay dude.” Yuck.
See you in the next post.
-A
“No one gets away with anything, ever. So take responsibility for your own life.” — Dr. Jordan Peterson
