A Sequence of Jumps.
(This week I’m going to be writing a series about the jumps we all need to make to find peace in our lives. I hope this will be of help to you.)
The Responsibility Jump.
Who are you responsible to? It’s a tough question, because there are so many possible answers. Maybe it’s your higher power, or the universe as an entity, or your spouse, your children, the world, or only the people you want to be responsible for.
Sometimes it’s a blend of these and many others, and sometimes it’s just one of them. But to my mind, there is one responsibility that overshadows all the rest.
You are responsible primarily to yourself.
So many people misunderstand this concept, and some who do understand it cower from it, because it contains the hardest burdens to bear.
Being responsible to and for yourself means that you accept the need to bring your conduct into alignment with the highest truths and ideals that you hold. That also includes how you treat yourself, as well as others.
It means that you have to do what is right for you, even when you want to take solace in what feels good to you, and those can often be very different from each other.
Doing what is right for you often gets confused with selfishness, and so people shy away from it out of fear of feeling like they are too focused on themselves, or because it means that the feelings of someone else will be ‘hurt’.
Instead you would rather accept a wound you inflict upon yourself unnecessarily than wound another who had no right to expect something of you. I see this time after time.
Good people who fail in their duty to care for themselves, and put their own needs first out of a fear that they will be judged by another.
In case that’s you, let me lay out for you what I see as your responsibility to yourself, so that you might think about this more deeply.
You are responsible to yourself for your beliefs, and to make sure that they are yours by thought, by discussion and by a deep, abiding deliberation in your soul, and not the dogma of others, or a belief that you have adopted to placate or avoid the disappointment of another.
You are responsible to yourself for your actions; by learning to understand your deepest motivations, and ensuring that they come from a place of truth, not fettered and directed by petty jealousies or feelings of inadequacy.
You are responsible to yourself for your health, not your appearance. If you wish to have peace, you must do what you can to rid yourself of pain, so that your mind may be clear and able to resonate with truth. This is hard.
You are responsible for your thoughts; to make sure that you allow no weeds to grow in the gardens of your soul. Monitoring your own thoughts is hard, because it often means that you need to sacrifice a personal want for a truth you know to be right. Make that sacrifice as often as you can, and you will grow in respect for yourself.
Finally, you are responsible to yourself for your desires, for these will control your destiny if you let them. Trying to understand why you truly desire a thing will lead you further down the path of wisdom than you ever felt possible, but it will also bring you peace and joy.
May you make the jump of responsibility, and find yourself anew.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings