How To Be Responsible
If I told you that in a month, if you do a simple experiment, that you will want to be responsible, instead of just give responsibility lip-service, would you call me crazy?
That’s okay, I don’t mind being called crazy. Usually, those few paragraphs above appear as some sort of sales gimmick, to get you to buy a pamphlet for $30, or a set of CDs for $100. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, except that I don’t charge people to help them. Right now, all of my incentive to write this comes from responsibility, and the average $1/month (Update, I’m up to $2/month now) that I’ve been getting from adsense revenue.
That’s right, I’m making pennies on the hour for writing this. Why do I do this? Why am I making an average gross earnings of seven cents per post? Good will is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t seem like fun to research personal development when I could be playing video games for free.
It all comes down to our attitude. For a few years now, I’ve been trying to get my nephew motivated to do his chores around the house with little success. If he has his heart set on playing and he is told that he has to do anything before he plays, he either turns into a cry-baby or gets extremely angry. Either way, it takes far longer than necessary for him to finish, and his stress only reinforces how much he hates doing his chores. I’ve tried yelling at him, threatening to spank him, grounding him, giving him motivational speeches, listening to his concerns, and many other methods, but the only consistent way to get him to do his chores quickly and effectively is for him to have a good attitude, something that I can’t force or encourage out of him without his help.
Of course, my nephew has one thing going for him; he gets a tangible reward that is granted once he completes his chores. I don’t have that luxury. I have no boss saying that when I complete my posts, I’ll get some money. I don’t have a parent figure to tell me that I can go play once I’ve written a good article. I’m not rewarded for helping people, except for that good feeling when someone leaves a comment letting me know that I’ve helped them. I have more fun things to do, and a few, more urgent things that I could be accomplishing, so why am I still writing?
The simple answer is that I’ve changed my definition of responsibility, and what it means to be responsible. Most people are going around saying that being responsible is where people do things they don’t want to so that they can see some improvement. Doing your taxes each year is a responsibility, and very few people like doing it. Cleaning your yard and house is a responsibility, and few people like doing it. Going to work so that you can pay bills is a responsibility, and again, few people like doing it. Most of the time, anything that we say is a responsibility is something that we don’t like doing.
Here’s my new definition of responsibility, one that has helped me out more and more as I’ve adopted it. A responsibility is something that, if we enter into it with the right attitude, is extremely fun, rewarding, and brings improvement. Now, instead of saying “I want to have some fun, what computer game shall I play?” I say, “I want to have some fun, how can I make doing the dishes fun?” In fact, figuring out how to make something fun is fun in itself. It can be as dorky or as serious fun as you want it to be, since you’re the one playing. Many people’s definition of responsibility already includes bringing improvement, so I probably don’t have to explain that doing yard work will improve the look of your yard, now do I? 
Rewarding is a different beast altogether, and deserves a couple of paragraphs. I’m not talking about an external reward, such as a paycheck, since that falls under the category of improvement… We improve our bank account by earning a pay check. We improve our yard by doing yard work. In these cases, the final results could be considered a reward, but you can have an additional reward outside of the main goal you are working towards.
This additional reward isn’t tangible; you can’t touch it or see it. This reward is a deep-rooted sense of accomplishment and importance that also increases your self-esteem dramatically. This isn’t the high and lofty pride that pushes people to drive Hummers or wear fancy clothes, it is the quiet, humble pride of knowing that you are successful without the trappings of external things. Best of all, this reward is free, and just takes a little bit of adjustments to our way of thinking.
The majority of people look at the end results of being responsible. I say the majority of people are missing half the fun, and that’s why they don’t make the effort to be responsible. If you only look at the end result, you quickly become discouraged when you don’t see results after a few attempts. Even if you can see immediate results, such as a clean kitchen, it becomes discouraging to see the kitchen get dirty again, as though all of your work was wasted. If we can just change our attitudes to make everything we consider a responsibility to be fun and rewarding, despite the end result, we will be much more responsible.
Here’s the trick. Find out what makes you feel important, and from those important qualities, figure out what you can do to be even more important. I could be the smartest person in the world, but if I don’t do anything with that intelligence, that intelligence is no better than a moron’s intelligence; at least the moron is doing his best.
These important qualities could be a list of your skills and attributes, for instance, strength, intelligence, ability to program a computer, etc. This is fine, except that these are impermanent; an accident can rob you of your strength, give you brain damage, and rob you of your ability to program. While listing your skills and attributes is a valid method, a better method is to list your roles, such as being a father/mother, being a programmer at work, being director of whatever organization you volunteer at, being a homeowner, etc. These can change, but they’re not likely to all change at the same time. Listing your roles works great for a while, and may even work for a lifetime, but if you could unify all of your roles into a life purpose, you’ll have an even more firm foundation to work from, and your different roles would branch out from there. I’ll talk more about a life purpose later, but I want to talk about something that we can do right now to find our important qualities.
The easiest way to start being more responsible is to list your different roles, and look at what you consider your responsibilities. Go ahead and get out a pen and paper, or bring up your favorite document editor on your computer. I’ll still be here when you have the equipment you need. Got it? Good. Write a list of your roles, but don’t list any specific responsibilities. If you have pets, then you would be a pet owner. If you have a car, you’re a driver. If you’re married, you’re a spouse. Got kids? Hello, parental role. If you’re an employee, list that as well. Take all of the different roles that you play, and don’t be afraid to add more roles later as you think of them.
Once you have a decent list, look at it again and decide which roles make you feel the most important, and put those at the top of a new list, followed by the middle roles, and the roles that make you feel the least important. Think of each responsibility that each role brings; being a pet owner brings the responsibility of supplying food, water, and keeping their environment clean so that they don’t get sick. If you have cats, it includes the disgusting job of cleaning their litter boxes, and this happens to be perfect practice to get the hang of this type of responsibility, since your cats won’t be thanking you when you’re done.
Once you have your list of roles, and have sorted them in importance, take a good long look at the different responsibilities that fall under each role. Each responsibility increases how important you feel when you give them attention. If you have cats with a litter box, cleaning that litter box makes you important to your cats (whether they appreciate you or not… cats are fickle creatures, you know, which makes them perfect practice for the even more fickle humans you will also be dealing with). This is the whole trick; recognize your importance to those around you. Recognize your importance to yourself as well, most of all.
If you are a car owner, recognize that you’re the only person who can keep your car running by doing tune-ups and changing its oil, checking its lights, and doing all of that ‘responsible junk’ that we tend to forget. You are important to your car, and the only way it will thank you is by saving you money on buying a replacement or being more efficient on fuel. The same goes for your house, or for any other tool you might have; you are the only one who can take responsibility, which makes you the most important person in the world to those tools.
How about your body? That’s right, your body is important to you, so why don’t you support it and be important to it as well? One option is to wake up an hour and a half earlier, do an hour of exercising, and take an extra shower in the morning. (Please talk to your doctor before starting an exercise routine… the goal is to improve your health, not damage it. ) You could also help your body out by starting a diet (again, see your doctor), such as the South Beach Diet, which is the healthiest diet I’ve found so far, and the food is really good. Heck, I weigh 130 pounds, and I’m on the South Beach Diet, and I’m genetically inclined to start climbing to the lower 200’s as of a year ago. Now we’ve finally found something that we can be responsible with that will result in real appreciation. Trust me, you will thank yourself for the diet and exercise.
What about your role of being a spouse or parent? You’re obviously important enough to your spouse to get married in the first place, so reinforce that importance. The best way that I’ve found to be important to someone is to listen to them honestly, leaving your ego at the door, but responsibility doesn’t end there. Listen to your spouse the way you would want to be listened to, and recognize how important you are to him/her. Don’t expect them to listen to you the same way; this is your own personal development, not spouse development. If you do want them to start listening to you the same way, be the example and show humility first. Once you’re done listening, act on what you are told.
As for kids, who is more important to a child than their parents? You don’t have to be the biological parent to be a real parent, or even have guardianship. My wife and I are extra parents to my nieces and nephew, since we live in the same apartment building, and my sister (a single mother) has to spend much of her time at work. The key here is the same to dealing with a spouse; listen to them. Be honestly concerned with their worries and fears, even if they do seem unimportant in the big scheme of things. Even though you know that a bully will go away, and friendships can be repaired, kids don’t have that experience yet, and a small deal for someone with a quarter century of experience seems like a lifetime struggle for someone with only one decade under their belts. Recognize your responsibilities towards them and remember that you are the most important person in their lives; only you can help them grow up to be responsible, visionary adults who will create earth-shattering improvements.
So, what’s the trick again? Just recognize how important living up to your responsibilities makes you feel, and you’ll start your responsibilities with a good attitude. If you have a good attitude when performing your responsibilities, you can have fun with them. In the end, doing the chores that you used to put off indefinitely will be fun, rewarding, and a vast improvement over your life today.
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