With Gratitude for Responsibility

On this Labor Day Monday, it seems a good time to talk about responsibility, even though this topic may not always seem like Grace in our lives!  I am very grateful that I had parents and teachers who taught me responsibility as a child.  I am also grateful that my nieces/nephews are teaching their children responsibility and having expectations of their children to take responsibility for their actions.  Discipline is good for children and will pay off in the long run, right?!

When I learned the most about responsibility, a time that brought much clarity to its impact, was when I worked with persons with a serious mental illness.  Our program’s goal at the University of Arizona was to support persons in getting their lives back on track through their involvement in work or school.  In our society, there is such a terrible stigma against persons with this illness that we “classify” them in their own group.  This makes it very hard for them to break into society.  It was very difficult for them to begin the socializing process, to go toward seeking a job, finding fulfillment.  I learned that a major part of their success happened the moment they took responsibility for their lives.  I watched one individual kick and scream and dig in her heels so she wouldn’t have to cross that line.  Once she did, she realized she was the only one making the line so difficult to cross.  Since then, she transformed her life.  While once she was a person expecting a conflict at every turn, she became a symbol of spiritual growth and helped others to grow.  Once we take responsibility for where we are, accept it, climb out of victimhood, grasp our life, we flourish!  That is when the “Invisible Hands” Joseph Campbell referred to, help us along the way!  People, messengers, things come into our lives that we could not begin to orchestrate if we tried!  It is miraculous—it is Grace!

I have always been very responsible; however, I came to realize something – when I took responsibility for things that I wasn’t responsible for—when I filled my days taking care of things that rightfully belonged to someone else, I was no longer being responsible.  I was fulfilling an ego need—a part of survival—that says, as long as I keep doing this for you, maybe you will find me to have value.  Unfortunately, by so doing, I gave up my power, remained a victim and didn’t get to experience who I was really meant to be—all this just to gain some approval!  This was a very hard lesson to learn.  The survival lesson for me was to learn that I can no longer give of myself (in the way of taking care of others’ responsibilities) because it was to my detriment to do that.  More and more fellow workers wanted me to do projects because they knew the effort I would put into it.  This meant more and more work—validation was taking more and more effort to attain!  I didn’t understand it at the time, but it was external validation—there was no internal validation taking place.

I wanted to bring this point across because, in our society, there are a lot of victims.  I’m not knocking anyone—it is a part of survival—it is ego doing its job, protecting us from the pain we are not ready to face – from the responsibility we are not willing to assume.  As mentioned in previous posts, I’ve come to learn that survival is not truly living.  When persons are in a survival mode, they are always watching their back or waiting for the next shoe to drop.  They go through their life creating and continuing that lifestyle—“Guess what happened to me now!”  These are the words of a victim who is choosing to remain a victim—it becomes an expectation, something to hang onto – that is ego doing its job.  Notice how the words typically state something has happened to them—it’s come from outside of them—another confirmation of the willingness to give up their power. 

We may not always like what’s happening in our lives—we may feel a bit out of control at times—however, if we trust God’s Will, we know that all happens for the good, so we have to trust that He knows what we need best.  Blend your will with God’s Will—He wants us to make choices, too—and grow and learn from them.  He is a loving Father Who knows very well that discipline is love.