According to Colin Powell, “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off . “ (“Quote”). This is because part of being responsible sometimes means holding one’s ground when dealing with others. Not all people, unfortunately accept responsibility. When this happens, we hear rationalizations and poor justifications. We hear how life has been unfair to them, see destructive responses that an outsider can foretell would lead to over dependency, fatalistic thinking, and low self-esteem. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that no one can put you down without your permission.
Constant blame from God to parents to authorities, everyone except himself are marks of an irresponsible person. Its effects on health range from anger, depression, hostility, fearful of taking risks, physical ailments, lots emotional baggage (“Tools”, 2006). Giving up is so easy for an irresponsible person. An irresponsible person is a one-man dictionary of excuses and the pasture is always greener on the other side of the fence. Accepting personal responsibility requires self-affirmation which means being at home with who you and what you are capable of.
Fears are natural to human beings but they are not there to make us catatonic so as to do no wrong. Once personal responsibility is ingrained in one’s psyche, one develops the ability to be open to new ideas and experiences, overcome paralyzing fears, accepts help from others for one’s self improvement (“Tools”, 2006). One is also in control of one’s life because you know that you can charter it the way you want given the choices you have.
One also can choose how to respond to people’s actions and other circumstances that come along. Happiness becomes a choice.Most of all, one knows his priorities and acts responsibly to them (“Tools”, 2006).
References
Powell, Colin. (2005). Quotedb. com. Retrieved 29 November 2006 from the World Wide Web:
http://www. quotedb. com/quotes/1040 Responsibility. (2006). Dictionary . com.
Retrieved 29 November from the World Wide Web:
http://dictionary. reference. com/browse/responsibility Tools for Personal Growth Accepting Responsibilty. (1999-2006). Coping. org.
Retrieved 29 November 2006 from the World Wide Web:
http://www. coping. org/growth/accept. htm#What