RESPONSIBILITY

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that I am responsible for my life. No one else is responsible for me. No one owes me anything. Sure I can ask for advice and sometimes for help with something, but I am responsible for my actions or inactions. No one else is to blame unless they actively do something to harm me. For example, I am not responsible for the two burglars who broke into my apartment one night. I am responsible for the foolhardy gesture of chasing them off with a broom (what was I thinking of?) and calling the police. I am responsible for putting a light with a motion detector on the porch and for adding wood strips across the screen windows to make it harder to break in again.

Taking responsibility is hard, sometimes painful, It was easier to let my parents take care of things when I was little. But life is hard. If you're going to live your own life, you have to take responsibility for it.

Boy, I've used the words responsibility or responsible eight (now nine) times. If you haven't guessed, lack of responsibility on the part of others is one of by pet peeves. I'll bet a good quarter of my counseling and pastoral work is done is done with people who refuse to accept responsibility for themselves.

Here's the classic example of what I am talking about; this simple declaration. "You make me angry." It's said frequently, perhaps by all of us, but what does it actually say? It says, "You have the power to determine my emotional state." It concedes our dependance on someone else. They have power that we cannot overcome. They can make us angry. From this often follows another notion. What I do when I am angry is not my fault since another person has caused me to be angry. That is to say, when another person makes me angry, they have overcome my will and caused me to behave in ways for which I have no responsibility.

Little children frequently act on the basis of emotion. It takes a gradual process of maturation and learning for the child to overrule the emotions and have the will determined by the intellect. When a person declares that another person has made them do something by producing a particular emotional state in them, they have retreated into childish behavior. Boy, do I ever see a lot of that in life.

This elemental retreat from responsibility takes many different, complex forms. The one that I often deal with in counseling lies in people who refuse to take responsibility for their own happiness in life. They are generally miserable (and spread that misery to others whenever possible), but are never responsible for their emotional condition. Someone or something else is always to blame. I'll invent an example. Me: "Why are you so unhappy?" Them: "There's nothing to do in this place. I hate it here." Me: "What do you want to do?" Them: "Anything. Go into town. Shop in the stores. See a movie. Visit friends. Anything." Me: "So why don't you do any of those things?" Them: "I don't have a way to get anywhere. I don't have a car, and I don't drive." Me: "Could you ride a bicycle?" Them: "Are you crazy. I can't be riding around on a bike at my age." Me: "All right. How about taking a bus? " Them: "I don't know where the bus goes." Me: "You could get a map and find out." Them: "I can't understand those maps. Besides I don't know where the bus stop is." Me: "Could you ask a neighbor?" Them: "Those stuck up people. I don't want anything to do with them." On and on it goes, the person rejecting any suggestion that they do something to change their circumstance. They are not responsible for their own happiness.

Another type of irresponsibility I have to cope with lies in people refusing to be responsible for their own physical needs or those of their family. I am not talking about the mentally or physically impaired who deserve help from the community of the basis of common humanity. No, I am talking about people who will not work (I can't find a job) or if they do work, will not make any accommodations in their lives to live within their means. I have had people come crying to me that they have no food in their house to feed their family. The church has provided several weeks worth of food, but the family immediately throws a party and consumes everything in one weekend. I have had people begging for help with their electric bill only to find that they run the air-conditioning 24 hours a day AND have cable TV with premium stations and a $65 bill for pay-per-view movies. I have had people beg for milk for the kids only to find the parents both smoked, and there were beer cans all around the house. No problem purchasing those items.

Maybe I have become an old meany on this, but I am tired of trying to help people who will make no effort to help themselves, believing that someone else should be providing for them. But . . . there's always a but . . . but what about when there are kids involved? It's not the kids' fault that they have idiot parents that would rather smoke and drink than feed them. So you try to help, but always in the back of my mind was the occasion years ago when I got a call on a Sunday night from someone who needed money to buy baby formula. I rushed out to provide some financial help, and left just as the pizza delivery truck pulled up to their house.

I have two reasons for making self-responsibility a criterion for helping people. The first is that I have limited resources to draw on. Every person I help means another doesn't get helped. Second, as a Salvation Army official told me, if you give people the wrong kind of help (direct cash support) you enable them to stay in the same condition.

I don't want to give the impression that lack of self responsibility only exists among people without two nickels to rub together. Not at all. A certain heiress just got out of jail the week I'm writing this. She had been driving on a suspended license. Why was she doing that? Because she didn't know her license was suspended. Why not? She doesn't open her mail. She has "people" to do that for her. Sheesh!

I am not perfect, not anywhere near perfect. When I do something wrong, I have to fix it if possible. If it affects another person, it is my duty to make amends. That's all part of being responsible for yourself.

OK, the GROUCH is finished for this week.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne