Our Responsibilites to Others

In these blogs, I have been ruminating around the topic of responsibility to oneself and for oneself. In the process, I have been covering how our early Programming and Indoctrination impress on us the idea that one of our obligations in life is to focus on our obligations and responsibilities to others. In doing so, I have been addressing mature individuals for whom it applied when they were growing up.

The Programming has changed in regard to the upbringing of children being promoted by, "authority" in recent decades. The focus is still on responsibility and obligations, but it is no longer obligations to one's family and society. Currently, Child Psychology tells parents that it is the obligation of the parents to focus on their children. As a result, currently, parents have abdicated authority over the socialization of their children. Also as a result, young people grow up thinking they have no obligations or responsibilities regarding their families. Extreme examples of this extending to parents' taking no responsibility for their own children now appear in the news regularly.

I have, in earlier blogs, written about the seaming increase in the inter-personal violence that is occurring. While men abusing women has historically been common, instances of women physically abusing men seems to have increased greatly over the decades since the mid-Century. Men and women abusing their own children has been an un-discussed fact throughout history, but the extreme physical abuse of children, to the point of death resulting, which has become public knowledge in recent years, seems to be escalating. Something which rarely occurred in the past was children abusing and harming their parents and other adults, the main reason being that they would never have dared.

What does this have to do with responsibilities to and for oneself? Violence and abuse are the extreme opposite of what it means to be, "responsible" whether for oneself or others. Committing acts which are, by their nature, anti-social are also contrary to what it means to be responsible. What has been labeled, "sociopathic behavior" and considered to be uncommon, is no longer uncommon--it is the norm.

The primary way to combat what is, in actuality, a breakdown of society is for individuals to personally commit to a life being responsible, not only in one's own relationships, but taking full responsibility for one's day-to-day actions. It also requires becoming aware of how one personally relates to others--one's attitude--because what we experience is a reflection of what we are projecting out to the world.

Rarely do you read or hear about anyone taking any responsibility for anything negative which happens to them. Due to the fact that most individuals are so self-absorbed and unconscious of their affect on others by their behavior they cannot comprehend how they contribute to what happens to them. Good examples currently are cell-phone use and "twittering"; individuals using these devices are walking/driving "accidents" waiting to happen, no different than someone who is drunk.

Again it all comes down to being responsible. Someone who lives a life of responsibility-for-the-self can avoid the negativity in the world, just as lack-of-responsibility-for-the-self attracts negative experiences.

With that I end today's blog.

Shirley Gallup