Dear Reader,
Lately I have seen many videos and texts online promoting and even demanding everyone to take responsibility for their own actions. It got me wondering how does taking responsibility actually translates in our daily actions.
According to dictionary definitions, responsibility is a state or a fact of dealing with something, having control over someone, being accountable for something/someone.
My first thought was that responsibility is a mindset. You and I need to be aware of a situation or an action in order to take responsibility for it mentally. On the other side, there are elements over which we cannot take responsibility, such as the reaction and emotions of other persons.
- So, is it easy to take responsibility for something or someone?
- How do you do it?
- Does being responsible makes living more stressful or more enjoyable?
I have been dwelling on these questions for some days and here are some ideas you could ponder on.
Acknowledging that you can only take responsibility for your own actions, reactions, emotions and mindset is the first crucial step. The next step is to actually decide to take responsibility and to act upon something.
What about forgetting your body’s needs? That is not taking responsibility for your own health and thus your entire being, because body and mind are connected. Worrying too much about your physical state is exaggerating and allowing anxiety to take over.
I see that taking responsibility for your own person involves the following steps:
- Acknowledge your mindset about what responsibility is for you.
- Acknowledge what you can take responsibility for. (You can just make a list.)
- Acknowledge what you can’t take responsibility for. (You can just make a list.)
- Prioritize what you wish to take responsibility for. (You can just make a list.)
- Assess the effort required for each item on the list you made at point 4.
- Take one item from the list and deal with it mentally, emotionally and physically (if it involves any type of activity, doing something like cooking).
- Assess the emotions you have since you actively started to deal with that first item.
I invite you dear Reader to acknowledge what responsibilities you have and how you deal with it.
