Responsibility? Yes, I'll Have Some

Today, I'm thinking about responsibility.  I have become aware of several incidents recently in which the people involved have done everything in their power to push the blame onto someone else.  Not some of it, all of it.

This strikes me as wrong.

Bad things happen to people which are beyond their power.  I do believe this.  However, if a person is involved in a situation, there were choices made which allowed the situation to happen.  Those choices may have been made without enough knowledge to foresee the consequences, but the choices were made.

I'm not talking about accepting fault.  For example, if you are driving, legally and safely, and someone else hits you through their own carelessness, you do not have to accept fault.  But you did make the choice to be driving, and therefore you knew you were taking a possible risk of being hit.  This is responsibility.  And you will have to deal with the consequences.

This is a light version of responsibility.  This is a situation in which you took a calculated risk and things did not go in your favor.

There are other, far riskier choices people make.  Sometimes we make risky choices for what we believe are good reasons.  If I were to see a man hitting a woman, or someone weaker than himself, and I chose to involve myself, there is risk involved, and I will willingly accept the consequences of this choice.  I am responsible for that decision, and I accept what may happen to me.

I have made many such decisions, and the consequences have not always turned out in my favor.  I choose to help people, or do what I believe is right, even against conventional expectation.  This has cost me jobs sometimes, and other important things in my life.

Sometimes, I see later that those choices were not best for me, and with more information and understanding, maybe not even best for other people involved.

I make mistakes.  And I accept responsibility.  If I were not to own my choices, I could not learn from them when the consequences negatively affect me.  When faced with a similar situation, I may adjust my response based on previous experience.

In order to continue learning, to become a better person, I must understand:  The responsibility in any given situation in which I find myself is, to a greater or lesser extent, mine.