Personal Responsibility (or lack thereof)

The biggest problem in the world today, as I see it from my post as a junior high school teacher, is lack of responsibility. We often hear about these irresponsible teenagers, but I'd like to consider for a moment what the word really means and the implications of it. Responsibility does not necessarily mean that things are done the way they are supposed to be done, or even that they are done at all. It simply means that someone is responsible for doing it, and accepts that they did or didn't do and the consequences that may follow. To use a familiar example, a students are responsible for their homework. If a student attempts to make excuses for why their homework isn't done in order to avoid the consequences, they are acting irresponsibly. If a student accepts the consequences readily, they are acting responsibly. If a student fails a test, the responsible student knows that they must study harder, or do something if they wish to pass. An irresponsible student blames the teacher, or bad genes, or anything else to avoid the responsibility of the fact that it is they who have failed. I will avoid a discussion about how parents are encouraging irresponsibility by siding with their "angels" and confirming their immature belief that their failure is not their fault, but it needs to be mentioned that this is the society that we are living in. Immaturity and irresponsibility are literally breeding immaturity and irresponsibility.

How do we avoid our responsibilities? One way is by living in the past, also known as the land of "if only." If only I had (or hadn't) done this, I wouldn't be such a failure, if only my parents had done that, I could be so much better, etc. etc. We can also live in the future, another if only land. If only I was older, if only I was married, if only I had children, if only the kids would grow up and move out, if only I was retired, and then what? If only I was dead? No wonder so many of our retired population suffers from depression. If you spend your whole life looking forward instead of living, what do you do when there is only death to look forward to?

We must grasp what it truly means to live, which is the same as what it means to live in the present. Living in the present means we must give up our aversion to responsibility, hard as it may be. Nobody wants to admit their failures are their own, but we must own them. How can we overcome them if we do not? Society is made up of individuals. If each individual minded their own business, and took responsibility instead of blaming others for their own failures, imagine what we would be able to accomplish. If we would look carefully at ourselves and our failures we would be able to see how we could turn them (and ourselves) into successes. I, for one, will not wait until the world is such, but will act so each day.

"If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try." -W. H. Auden