Responsibility

Responsibility and making excuses

To continue our exploration on how to become the most impactful person we can be, we will now focus on the importance of the third required mindset trait - the ability to be responsible and do what is right.

While, nowadays, many parents have the tendency to be too controlling and overprotective towards their children, the act of taking responsibility is actually a very important and necessary step for our growth. It is only when we are on our own, being allowed to make our own decisions (and being held responsible for those decisions) that we learn through the consequences of our mistakes and grow into someone more independent and mature.

Furthermore, taking responsibility is also what brings a certain level of safety and stability to our life. When our mindset is one where we are constantly holding ourselves accountable for our actions and doing what is right based on our knowledge, we will naturally have a lot of trust and confidence on the fact that, no matter what happens in our life, we will be able to rise to the circumstances and do what needs to be done.

So being responsible is exactly what allows us to take care of ourselves but it is also, in a sense, what allows us to take care of others. The more knowledgeable, aware, confident and responsible we are, the more we can use our skills and talents to have a positive impact on the lives of other people.

This is one of the reasons why responsibility is so positively and highly valued in our society and also why so many wealthy and socially notable individuals (such as for example Bill Gates or Richard Branson) usually make the decision, at some point in their lives, to devote almost their entire time and effort to help those who need it the most. After years and years of focusing on their craft, they find themselves in a position where they have the knowledge and power to contribute to the world and naturally come to the conclusion that it is their duty and responsibility to do so.

Odd as it may sound, not everyone has this natural conviction to help other people though. In fact, for some reason, when confronted with how bad things are in certain places in the world, our usual emotional response is not to think of ways in which we could be of assistance but is rather to deflect the observations and come up with reasons on why it is probably not a good idea.

Now, in large part, this behavior can be attributed to our culture. We live nowadays in a society where fulfilling our egocentric goals and desires is constantly glorified and disregarding those in need is, in a very disturbing way, seen as acceptable. On top of that, for some strange reason, facts seem to be increasingly more open to debate and reprehensible acts, even those coming from highly prominent figures, are also given less and less importance. In such a setting, our inner voice of reason becomes somewhat divided. On one end, we know that it makes sense to help those who have it worse than us but on the other end, no one is holding us accountable for our irresponsible behavior and since we usually follow the intersubjectivity rather than our own critical thinking, we end up inventing excuses on why it doesn’t make sense after all.

What we fail to realize though is that opinions and beliefs never dictate reality. In a world with a continuous stream of tragic events that we can easily influence, wherein we no longer need to risk our lives in order to contribute, justifying our inaction is not a simple exercise of rhetoric. In many cases, it is the difference between life and death. So instead of losing ourselves on an intersubjective bubble of deception where we assume that it’s fine to keep mentally reciting the mantras we’ve been taught: "There's not much we can do. They are far away. Perhaps they deserved it.", we should simply accept that reality is what it is and, whether we like it or not, our inaction has consequences and it is our responsibility to act accordingly to that.

As a side note, it is important to keep in mind that taking responsibility doesn’t mean helping every person in need or changing the world. Taking responsibility is about seeing reality for what it is, accepting that actions have consequences and realizing that we can always do the most responsible thing at any given moment. This is of course still dependent on our knowledge. If we are not aware of the consequences of our actions (as for example children sometimes aren’t), we should not be held accountable to that. The moment we are aware though, we are automatically obligated to act in a responsible way.