Thursday, March 8, 2012

It Really IS all About You


My children, as they go about their business of growing up, provide my muse.  I was listening to the kids cleaning their bedrooms upstairs and one began to chide the other over some perceived offense or another.  I called them down and instructed the older to consider her words and her tone before she spoke to her younger sibling - I expected her to be encouraging and kind rather than flippant and degrading.  Much to my chagrin, my daughter responded in an unfailingly human manner - she blamed her sister.  "Mom, she wasn't doing what she was supposed to - she was just lolly gagging around not doing anything!"  Truth be told, that may well have been the case, however, my instruction was not directed to my younger daughter.  It had been to my older daughter and her attitude and tone of voice.  She alone was responsible for that, not her little sister.  Her little sister was responsible for her own self.

Isn't that the way of human nature?  When confronted with our own failings, we race to blame someone else.  "He made me do it", "If she hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had to react that way", "If they had done their part, I wouldn't be in this position right now".  But the truth of the matter is that we ARE responsible for our own selves.  WE alone control how we behave, what we do and how we do it.  When we cease to be responsible for our own actions, we give control of our lives to other people.  And by shirking responsibility for our own lives we, by default, become slaves.

Being responsible for ourselves is much easier said than done.  Swallowing our pride and admitting our shortcomings takes courage and fortitude.  It is by far easier to blame someone else for our poor behavior than to own it.  Learning responsibility begins at home.  It is taught by parents who love their children and never want them to become slaves.  Wise parents realize that when children don't learn to take responsibility for themselves, it opens the door for someone else to step in and take responsibility.  When we don't teach our kids responsibility, they grow up being, well, irresponsible.  They don't pay their medical bills, forcing the state to pick up the tab.  When the state picks up the tab, they will tell you what you can and cannot do with your body, thereby making you a slave.  It is happening already, in nearly every area of our lives.  We have shirked our responsibility, opening wide the door for government to step in and reduce us to little more than vassals.

And so you see, it really IS all about us.  The world does revolve around us, as individuals.  Our nation will go the way the individual goes.  When we choose to not take responsibility, our ability to take make our own choices will be stripped from us.  We are not a collective, reliant on each other for our prosperity - we are individuals, making our own future.  We are responsible.  It really is all about us.

5 comments:

  1. In the early 1990's I was reviewing the
    K thru 9th grade curriculum for our public school district. Much of it was Comprehensive Sex Education with graphic sexual inuendoes and terminologies that even most adults never heard of. All very age IN-appropriate for any age child once we discovered the meaning of the shocking words used for particular acts.

    In doing my review, I happened to speak with a woman who was a high level school official and I commented on how the schools are taking the responsibility away from parents by teaching such curriculum. I told her this kind of teaching belongs with the parents, not the school's.

    Her reply was "Since parents refuse to tell their children, we have to do it (like it was their duty). We do everything here but bed them down. We feed them breakfast, lunch and even babysit them. Parents have abdicated their roles as parents."

    It all begins with the parents; and even though many are very responsible parents who care enough to teach that responsibility to their kids, we have many parents who are just plain lazy, drugged out, who could care less what happens to their kids.

    So they just shove that responsibility onto others. Thus, we have a society without a conscience today willing to take what they did not work for from people who do.

    Men have been removed from their rightful place in the home by women (and society) who think they are better men - they'll never make it!!

    We have taken dad's out of the home/family equation because single women think they can do a better job alone. We bought into the big lie and now we are reaping what we've sown. Hopefully, prayerfully, we can one day do better.

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  2. I like this article, thank you! It also made me think of our responses when things happen to us. I'm involved in a leadership development group and there is a joke that goes around: "If I spit in your face, what are you? Most people respond, 'MAD!'. No, I made you wet!" LOL. It's about how we respond and react to the happenings. "I" didn't make you made, you got mad. It was because of your reaction.

    I don't know if that really fits, but it's what I thought of when you shared about your daughters.

    Love your site! Thanks!

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  3. This article could not have come at a better time. I have four children. I had to do the same thing at home and explain why I was correcting the one who thought they were right instead of the one who was actually committing the wrong. (They got dealt with also!) I will be sharing this article at supper tonight with them so they too can learn and understand about taking personal responsibility a bit more.

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  4. Learning our responsibility begins at home. It is taught by our parents. If the kid's don't learn their responsibility they grow up irresponsible.

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  5. There is a genetic problem that a very small minority of people have that gives them exceptionally high cholesterol, something along the lines of 350 compared to a "normal" blood cholesterol of 200-210. Those people with the genetic problem do indeed die young from heart attacks, typically between the ages of 45-60. It is easy to understand then why some people have extrapolated that if blood cholesterol of 35 kills you at age 45 then blood cholesterol of 210 is probably the reaso you have a heart attack at 70. And the same kind of "logic" then dictates you should lower your cholesterol to under 200. Coincidently, of course, we have a medication that will do this for you. Never mind the medication will probably kill you. The bottom line is we have made some bad assumptions about cholesterol based on some facts that are only true for the very small minority with a genetic disease. Sadly I also disagree with those who believe that if we just eat like our grandparents did we would live forever. The sad fact is there is no magic food and no "bad" food. Unless you have some genetic illness (like diabetes) it pretty much does not matter what you eat as long as your diet provides you with necessary nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Everything else is turned into energy to be burned.

    We will all die from something and if you avoid accidents and don't have a genetic illness you will dies from the big three: heart attacks, strokes and cancer. And it won't matter what you eat or don't eat.

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