Responsibility

Bad things happen all the time. That's not news. But when bad things happen, whether they are large-scale societal problems or personal issues, we want to know who is responsible so they can be punished or rehabilitated or make restitutions or whatever we think the appropriate response should be. In general, I think many people are of the mindset that if you broke it, you should fix it.

In practice, that way of thinking has a major problem. What one person considers a bad thing is not always what another person considers a bad thing. When one person does something they believe to be right and another person believes it to be wrong, we can't expect the first person to "fix" it because they don't believe anything is broken. (Unless we're talking about legal matters and getting the justice system involved. But in a(n at least somewhat) liberal society, most of our problems turn out to be extralegal.)

For instance, I believe that I am responsible for every bad thing that happens in my life. But I also believe that I have very little control over what happens to me. This may seem contradictory. Often, when we say that someone is responsible for an event, we mean that person has caused it to happen. If the event has negative consequences, we might also assign that person fault or blame. However, that's not what I mean in this case.

When I say I am responsible, I simply mean that if something goes wrong, I am the one who has to fix it - even if it's not my fault. It's easy to blame others when bad things happen, especially if it's actually their fault, but it's not very productive. Whether it is fair or not, I believe that those responsible for fixing problems are not those responsible for causing them but rather those who actually want them fixed. Otherwise the problems won't get fixed at all.

Divorcing the idea of responsibility from blame is also empowering. When something goes wrong, you can be the person who does something about it or the person who waits for someone else to do something about it. For me, the number one sign of a good leader is someone who takes responsibility for everything that happens on their watch, even if it's not their fault, and especially if something bad happens. A good leader doesn't point a finger, they just identify the problem and find the solution.

I believe that if you want to lead a good life, you should do the same. We don't always have a lot of control over what happens to us. But we do have control over how we respond. That is our responsibility.