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8:17 a.m. - 2002-10-18
Personal responsibility
A popular subject lately. Well, and one that's one of my favorite soap boxes ever I suppose.

I've been searching the net a little for the words "personal responsibility" and I've found some pretty interesting things to read. I've found that I'm not the only one who realizes that the majority of the people out there are lazy and irresponsible just because they don't own up to their own responsibilities. It's nice to see that there are indeed a fair share of people who seem to understand the concept as well.

Some quotes that I found that I particularly like:

Donald Trump said " When we want to do something we find a way, but when we don't we find an excuse." (http://www.lindaspeak.com/ptrespon.htm)

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The ancient Greeks had a rather different take on this business. It�s not that they did not recognize that people do indeed do strange and bizarre things for which they have little rational explanation. Agamemnon, for example, admits he was out of his mind to behave as he did towards Achilles, and later he is hard put to explain just why he did so (Iliad 9.136 [cf. 119]: ... "I must have been crazy, and I myself don�t deny it"). What he does not go on to say, however, is "that bitch of a wife of mine back in Argos made me do it and that�s why I can�t be held accountable" but the opposite: "and that�s why I want to make good my actions and pay him back countless ransom" (http://www.avalon.net/~rabbith/gouwen/A&M_sophocles-responsibility.html) This was an interesting piece indeed relating now to ancient times... rather amusing really.

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on self-knowledge: The Flemish mystic, Jan van Ruysbroek (1293-1381), wrote: "Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are, and whither we are going"

The more mature we are, the less we are inclined to blame other people or circumstances for what we perceive as our misfortunes, and the more we are prepared to recognise the extent to which our own actions have contributed to whatever subsequently happens to us. We increasingly appreciate that it is usually futile to ascribe blame to anyone, even ourselves, and that our apparent misfortunes are always experiences from which we can learn and which contribute to our psychic progress.

"Expressing Ourselves

When we begin to explore our own psychic potential, we find ourselves confronted with the daunting task of being objective with regard to our own feelings and emotions. If and when we succeed in being honest with ourselves, we still have difficulty in giving adequate expression to our personal truths. We are unable to 'open ourselves up' to other persons because our languages have in the main been designed to express relationships between the sensible objects of the material world. To converse about the intangible inner world, we must either invent a new language or use everyday terms in allegorical (i.e. peculiar) ways, reducing the possibility that other people will understand what we are trying to say. This difficulty increases our sense of loneliness.

For example, I am aware that the word 'psychic', which I use extensively in this essay, conveys to many people the idea of some extraordinary, or paranormal, faculty by which we become aware of things we can't discern with the physical senses. Well, it can mean this; but I am currently using the word in the more general sense which refers to the Spiritual, interior, aspects of humanity including the whole gamut of feelings and emotions.

Fortunately, in Spiritual communication, actions speak louder than words. The kindly glance, the smile, the gentle touch, the fond embrace, can be more eloquent in the service of Love than the most sublime poetry. And I need not stress the significance of the baleful look, the rude gesture, the blow from the fist. Actions such as these are direct and spontaneous translations of Spiritual feelings and emotions into physical terms. But such immediate and spontaneous media of communication are not available at a distance and, to communicate using the Internet, I must struggle to find common words which will at least give some reasonably adequate impression of what I find within myself.

Responsibility is essentially a psychic quality. It relies on development of a sense of values which take cognisance of the interaction between the expansive, creative, cohesive forces of love and the inhibiting, destructive, divisive forces of fear as experienced and interpreted through the exigencies of human life. It is concerned with kindness, hate, cruelty, truth, falsehood, shame, guilt, knowledge, ignorance, selfishness, selflessness, freedom, justice, and any other quality for which there is no concrete linguistic expression. Nevertheless, such qualities are all recognisable among the contents of our conscious awareness, and the process of becoming more responsible necessarily includes becoming more keenly and more constantly aware of the contents of our individual consciousness. "

(http://www.ardue.org.uk/temple/resp.htm) I enjoyed what I read of this piece as well.

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"If you could kick the man responsible for most of your troubles,you wouldn't sit down for a week." �Owen Arnold

(http://www.empowerthespirit.com/Articles/wisdom.htm)

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"...Ahhh...personal responsibilty! Bingo. It means that you so the right thing, and, if you should happen to step inot a pile of youknowwhat, it means taking the responsibility of where you've placed your own feet. It's not pointing the finger at someone else. It's not blaming people, places, or things for something that you did, or more importantly, didn't do. Example time. How about committing yourself to help someone and the forgetting or just plain blowing them off. Did that physically harm them? Hopefully not, but it certainly let them down. Did that hurt? It most certainly did. Now, I'm not talking about planning to be there, then getting the flu. There are circumstances that are forgiveable, but, even at that, forgiveness cannot be assumed. It has to be asked for, and that's just as much a part of being responsible. Forgiveness is not a whitwash either. Sometimes the damage cannot be erased with an "I'm sorry." "

"The past couple of generations have slowly turned towards finding reasons why someone isn't responsible for their actions. "It's not the criminal's fault for breaking the law, it's because he/she was a victim of________"....insert whatever reason you'd like. Or, "The bad guy did the bad thing because this group of people allowed him the means to do it." "

(http://www.maxpages.com/innersanctum/Personal_Responsibility) A Wiccan site where the author is describing personal responsibility as it relates to the Rede. The typing is bad but the thoughts and knowledge are there.

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We have had many leaders in our past that showed us the possibilities. "When in the course of human events�" "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." "I have a dream." In the 1990�s we got "Read My Lips", and "I Didn�t Inhale." Excuses and Lies. Where did we miss the turn in the road, and how can we find our way back? How have we grown to not only accept lying by elected office holders, but to expect it?

(http://www.netcitizen.org/netcitizen/personalresponsibility.html)

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heh... I suppose I've read enough for today. I should do some work now.

Perhaps more later if my consciousness doesn't get rocked by work.

 

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