crane@fortune.UUCP (John Crane) (02/01/84)
Most people tend to view responsibility in terms of blame. Meaning, Mother comes into the kitchen and sees two-year-old you sitting in the middle of the floor with a pot of jam on top of your head and a sticky mess all over everything. She says: "Are you responsible for this mess?" You say: "Yes". (Meaning "Yes, I take the credit for this.") Whereupon she proceeds to haul ass on you. Betcha that's the last time you took responsibility for anything. There is a another kind of responsibility however. It is merely an acknowledgement to oneself that "Yes, I did that" or "No, I didn't do that", with no blame or glory or any kind of judgemental qualification attached. Don't say to yourself: "Yes, I did that, boy am I gonna get it if anybody finds out." or "Yes, I did that, are you going to beat me up now." or "Yes, I did it what do you want to make of it", but simply "Yes, I did it." What you did or didn't do doesn't matter -- and it doesn't matter whether somebody else considers it "good" or "bad". Just acknowledge to your self that you did it. In short, take responsibility for it. Try this experiment. Most people in the business world keep a list of things to do. If you don't, you should start using one. List everything you plan to do today. EVERYTHING except eat and go to the bathroom. Start doing the items on the list. (Easier said than done, but at least start on smoething.) Now here's the msot important part, when you have completed something, acknowledge to yourself that you did it and CKECK IT OFF THE LIST. If you want to stop and also take a break or pat yourself on the back or treat yourself in smoe other way, fine. But this is all superficial. The real sense of accomplishment comes from simply acknowledging to yourself that you did it. If you did it together with a group of poeple, fine. You still did your part, so take responsibility for it. I am now going to try to anticipate the responses I might get on this. Some people will be too afraid to try it. They might even be too afraid to respond at all. Others are going to respond with varying degrees of resentment, anger, and hostility: A. This kind of discussion doesn't belong in net.religion. B. This kind of discussion doesn't belong on the net period. C. What you said won't work and here's why. D. Here's what so and so said on the same subject. E. Where'd you get your information from. Who are you quoting. F. That's not new. So and so said the same this in a &*(&*( class at #%#%$#^ smoe $%$%$ years ago. G. This discussion is not consistent with the @$@$@ belief. H. What you said is OK as far as it went, but also ... I..You are right except for points A, B, C... I am not welcoming the above kinds of discussions. I am merely stating my personal philosophical views. I'm not saying you have to believe them. I'm not saying that they are better than anybody else's. I am taking responsibility for the above the way I defined it above. My suggestion to the reader is see if you can find something above that you could agree with, then try it. If it works for you, it works. If it doesn't that's OK too. John Crane