Responsibility…Who will take some?

Single Guy Money made a great point this week in his article about how people aren’t quick to take responsibility for their own actions. So many people are basically whining about their credit card debt, how they can’t afford their mortgage payments, or fund their retirement. But where does this lack of responsibility begin? I have a few ideas, some people may not agree with them or have other ideas they can add, but these are just a few I’ve conjured up working with children (let’s get down to the basics, shall we?):

• Most people have been raised with the idea that if they fess up to something bad, there’s a worse repercussion waiting for them on the other end. Yes, we constantly tell our children, or other people’s children, that if they just tell us the truth the first time and take responsibility for their actions, the punishment will be less. But kids don’t trust us! Here is where we begin our life of denial.
• Taking responsibility for our own actions means being truthful with ourselves. I think many people live a life of lies, more or less. We believe that we deserve certain things in life (I feel I deserve my daily Starbucks!)
• The media doesn’t help us truly visualize reality. The images and lifestyles of the characters in movies and television is slightly delusional. I wrote an article about this a while back. Today, if you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, many of their answers have something to do with celebrity status; a basketball player (though the kids is shortest in the class), a singer (think Hannah Montana!),  and a dancer (Glee! and High School Musical to name a few shows kids watch.)

Fessing Up

We’re on the playground at recess, and little Jonny just stole the ball from our handball court. Instead of getting an adult, who is just too far away, say 100 meters, we take matters into our own hands. We go right up to Jonny and push him, forcefully taking our ball back. An adult, of course, sees us push little Jonny who is now sobbing. When asked what happened, we say that it was Jonny’s fault, he stole the ball. The adult probes further and asks why we pushed him. We continue to hold our ground saying it wasn’t our fault and that we didn’t push him, we just grabbed our ball back. Though we may be accurate in saying that Jonny stole the ball, our actions were none other than just wrong. But we’ll never admit any wrong-doing! Hence, we being a life of denial.

Being Truthful

Just like the incidence that happened years ago on the school yard playground, being truthful with ourselves and others is difficult. For instance, our boss just emailed us a huge to-do list. She’d like to see it accomplished by the end of the day. Instead of getting started right away, we mosey down the hall and talk to Shauna about the Avatar movie that just hit theaters. At lunch-time, maybe we take an extra 10 minutes to follow up with a Starbucks drink. By the time we get to the list, there’s just no way to complete it by the end of the day. Half the day was wasted with small talk and eating! When our boss asks how it’s going, instead of admitting our procrastination, we say the list was so time-consuming there just wasn’t any way to finish it and that we’ll complete it in the morning. Again, we’d rather blame something or someone else than taking responsibility for our own actions!

MegolaMedia

After a long day’s work, we plop on the couch and veg in front of the television. Visions of beauty and money appear before our eyes. Character’s, who are secretaries, manage to live in large, expansive homes, wearing Manolo’s and flit across the screen (working barely 5 minutes during the shows 45 minute duration!). What are we doing wrong? We don’t live in a gorgeously decorated home and wear designer duds. If this is how a  secretary lives, we should be living larger, better, more expensively. Heck, why did we go to college? Oh wait. These make-believe characters are living make-believe lives. The media breeds this concept of reality that is not at all realistic.

Of course, as I get older and see where this lack of responsibility is bred, I get better at accepting my own personal responsibility. I don’t blame anyone except myself for the line of credit I took our a few years ago, or how I maxed it out. I also don’t blame anyone else for not having saved up enough for a down payment on a house yet. Sure, I could make lots of excuses for this, but I won’t. The age old saying, “You made your bed, now you have to lie in it,” seems to sum it all up.

What do you think? Am I on the mark? Does avoiding responsibility start at a young age? And how can we approach kids and get them to tell the truth, maybe avoiding this problem later in their own life?