Survival Kit #1 - Taking Responsibility

One of the greatest thing we can do is take responsibility for everything we do and feel. No one is responsible for our lives, but ourself.

I know we often fall victim for e.g.: our parent’s doing; spouse’s actions; boss’ lack of understanding us; the government’s lack of vision/wrongful political views; or our children’s lack of listening to OUR voice of reasoning.

You name it, as humans we will always find a way to push the situation away from ourselves. The reasons are many for not taking responsibility. And I too fall for it. Still to this day, I catch myself thinking: “ohh, I can’t get this or that done, because XX”.

Mostly I blame the Universe for everything that doesn’t go my way. But there can be many reasons, why things are not happening the way we want it.

Maybe we are triggered for a reason. Maybe we aren’t on the right path. Maybe our belief system needs some fine tuning. Maybe we are not ready for whatever we desire. Maybe the right players are not into place. Or maybe there’s just a greater Universal change going on, that “blocks” us from our next step. The reasons are infinite.

When taking responsibility, it means not blaming anyone outside ourself.

Neither are we going to blame ourselves (or in my case the Universe). In stead start to look at the bigger picture. Taking responsibility is about looking into what’s happening rather on reacting. When we do react (because we will), just embrace it and remind others and ourself, that we are a work in progress (= apologize if needed), and then get to work on finding the real “issue”.

Taking responsibility is also about looking within and making sure we are who we want to be at all times.

And we are equally good to our common livelihood here on Planet Earth. This of course, seems easier when we are in our best of times. But even in our darkest times (like these challenging times we are in), we have the responsibility to be good to ourselves and others. That’s why exercising our responsibility “muscle” is vital.

Taking responsibility is e.g.: to take the time needed to “get up again”; to look into the people we surround ourselves; to make sure we don’t hurt ourself or others; to mind what is coming out of our mouths; to look into our traumas, and so on.

By now, taking responsibility should be a full time job. If we have a household and a job to maintain, this might be the “least“ of our concerns. But actually it’s one of the best gifts we can give ourselves and others at this point in time.

Why? because if all of us took responsibility for our part in the way the Planet is working, then we can actually change it all. This is both on a grand scale and individually. If every soul on this planet minded theirs steps, and tracked anything they did, we actually wouldn’t need, laws, politics, or e.g. Sustainable Development Goals, or this “Government being our parent”- type of thinking. It would be redundant.

And taking responsibility is not only by being sustainable, or give to those less fortunate, or being a volunteer, etc. These are all fine actions, especially when being unconditionally intended.

Taking responsibility is also about minding the way we interact with each other and what we teach ourselves and the next generations. How we look into all that has been handed down to us, and whether it still fits the way we wish the world and life should be.

The thing is, everything we do is relationship based. This meaning, that the way we have set up “The system” (heck, even just referring to our Planets living form as a system, just sounds wrong) is based on prior relationships and the experience within them.

E.g. laws, politics, military co-operations, are based on an interpersonal relation, at one point. Our way of setting up family, romantic relationships, collaborations and friendships is based on ours and our ancestors experience with interpersonal relations, handed down to us. Very simplistically said about our ancestors, way way back: One person got mad or afraid of loosing something. Often, their land, power, money, even hearts, or other “means” created by some human to be important, so they invented e.g. punishments and rule books — probably the fundament of laws.

At this point it will be too premature to go further into the whole how governments and systems are established (the exact institutions we often aren’t agreeing with). It’s just important to state, that when we strip it all down, our systems and governments are (wo)man made. Meaning, the individual (wo)man can be the game changer. So it’s back to every person taking responsibility. And this does not mean letting it be up to the politicians, or the “experts”. Either does this mean creating demonstrations and riots.

It just means: turn inwards and look into where we aren’t taking responsibility for ourselves.

We need to change alone and individually, before we can change the whole. Another entrance point to all this would be:“…treat others the way you want to be treated”, and then following it through with actions and consistency.

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