Responsibility: Burden or Inspiration?

Think about your responsibilities. Do they feel light or weighty? Do they energize you or sap your energy? Some people carry tremendous responsibilities effortlessly. What is their secret? How does one carry responsibility without being weighed down by it? Let’s look at how to be responsible and at peace. 

Consider the difference between being responsible to and responsible for. Being responsible to someone means being honest and fair. Being responsible for someone is how a parent is with a baby. The person you are responsible for cannot go forward without you. We sometimes believe we are responsibility for the thoughts, feelings or actions of another person.  In actuality it’s not possible to make another person happy, successful, or on time. Only they can be responsible for what they think, feel, and do.

It’s easy to take on imagined responsibility for others because it feels like we are being helpful and good. With our own children it happens because we start out responsible for so much of their lives. As our children grow we tend to lag behind in adjusting to their growing capabilities. We confuse this kind of “help” with being loving. We believe they can’t take care of some aspect of their life as well as we can and we take on responsibility for that aspect. Of course, this is codependence, not love, however well-intended. The more “helpful” we act, the less capable the child may behave. And the more stressful the relationship feels. It is so fascinating! 

For years I was a middle school science teacher. Was I responsible for my students? As their teacher I was responsible for their safety when they were with me. But I was not responsible for they thought, felt, or did. I was responsible to them to be well prepared, honest, and fair. If I had taken responsibility for their moods, actions, or grades, I would have robbed them of exercising their own choices, efforts, and abilities. And I would have been miserable. Any angry, ornery, or unkind moment a student had would have been a reflection of me. Ughh!  How many weeks of that would I have enjoyed? No, my students were free to be living their own lives and they were free to have angry, ornery, happy or any other feelings. I was responsible for my mood, my language, and my actions. I was responsible to my students to create lessons and an environment conducive to learning. I was not responsible for them. Thank goodness!

As with our relationships to people, so it is with our relationship to work. No matter what role I play in an organization or field of work, the most I can do is be responsible to the job at hand. If it is my mission to wipe out teenage pregnancy or to sell computers, I will apply my talents and energy to the task. But I must not think that I am responsible for teenage pregnancy or for selling to every shopper. If I do that, everywhere I look I will see failure. It is too big. I will be overwhelmed and burn out. But if I focus on being responsible to the job, giving what I can, I succeed and can carry on to the next day energized by that truth. 

One of my clients was hesitant to step into what she saw as her calling in life. It involved taking on a persistent social problem and her perspective was that it would be a heavy burden. We discussed the distinction between responsibility to and responsibility for and she found that her image of the weight lifted. She could celebrate her talents, exercise her responsibility to herself to use them, and not carry the ills of the world on her shoulders.  So be responsible to others and to work. Recognize that you are an essential part of the whole picture. And that no single person ever is the whole picture.