The Desert of Arizona
Cloudy 29 Degrees – 7:09 a.m.
We’re going to file today’s issue under the “Be Careful What You Wish For” category.
Believe it or not, I’m a fairly new student of “Self-Responsibility.” I’m only about 10 years in, which means a full 75% of my time on this planet has been WITHOUT this ideal as a foundation of my truth.
25% in just about anything sends someone for remedial study 🙂
Up until that point, “being responsible” was something that meant standing up for your punishment when you ran contrary to the rules of whatever authority you had put yourself under.
I was a very well trained sheep. Ready to serve sir! Coming sir! What would you like me to think NOW sir?
This has extremely damaging consequences to the internal health of our being.
Just look around at the world if you’d like proof.
Government, insurance, and almost every expert and authority of all kinds are symbols, in one way or another, of our training to place responsibility for ourselves OUTSIDE of ourselves.
- Who needs to take responsibility for his health when you can just outsource that to the doctors or some pills?
- Who needs to take responsibility for his internal self when he can outsource that to a higher power or some other ideological leader?
- Who needs to take responsibility for his dealings with other human beings when he can just outsource that to OTHER rule makers who can tell him what is and is not appropriate?
In almost everything we do, there is a choice that represents us walking TOWARDS self-responsibility or away from it.
I finally learned (after 30 years!) that the right answer for me is to ALWAYS step towards a greater expression of self-responsibility for ME.
You might wonder why, in a “business” newsletter such as this Daily Journal, this writer just can’t seem to stay away from things that, on the surface, look like they have nothing to do with business?
It’s because business is built on the deeper work you do on YOU. You want to stick out in business? A surefire way to do that is to transform who you are to a version closer to your full potential.
I have to warn you, however, when you first begin to walk this path in a deliberate manner, it seems that the pressure can get pretty extreme.
The freedom you are exercising in realtime actually feels like it might kill you. But that’s only because your behavior is creating dissonance with your TRAINING. The pressure eventually subsides when you realize that’s actually what it feels like to BE ALIVE.
Just be careful what you wish for.
As H.L. Mencken said:
The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty – and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies. It is, indeed, only the exceptional man who can even stand it. The average man doesn’t want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.
The real work is to answer this question for you.
Is this the path you want to walk or not?
There’s nothing wrong if your answer is a resounding, “No.” But from my perspective, there IS something wrong with saying “No” when your internal voice is saying, “Yes.”