nAme, CLaiM & oWn

Responsibility is the current topic of interest for this week. Been reading a couple of books on taking responsibility, for ourselves. That we are all responsible for our own lives. That we are responsible for the choices we make. That we are responsible for who we are and what we become.

Responsibility, is a scary concept. It sounds so grown up, so adult. By taking responsibility of our lives, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Not fate, not destiny, not life, but we who are responsible for the way we live.

When I was a very young student, my teacher banned talking during classes. But we loved to chatter, so my friends and I devised this ingenious way of communicating with one another by writing on our erasers and passing them around. When our teacher caught us, we’d all look very innocent and deny that the eraser belongs to us. Or sometimes, one of us would say it belongs to so-and-so, an unsuspecting classmate whom we didn’t like.

Even though I have grown up now, I suspect there is still some residual habit of putting the blame on someone else when things wrong. It’s not my fault, it’s the stupid client who is too dense to understand the report I wrote. No, it’s not me, I am very sure I switched off the lights when I left the room just now.

Indignant, we cannot bear to be wrong. From the moral high-ground on which I stand, it is your fault, or maybe hers, or perhaps his.

Don’t look at me. The buck stops here.