Personal Responsibility
I’ve been thinking about the nature of personal responsibility for a while. One of things I had put in my daily affirmation is that I take responsibility for my actions. In the world of my career, that is a dangerous thing. I work in Advertising and things go wrong all the time and everyone is constantly looking to place the blame on everyone else for reason things go astray. Unfortunately, as a Production Artist, even if it’s not my fault, blame gets passed on to me, even though we sort of have a system of checks in place. This is on top of the errors I may be prone to make also. There are a lot of ins and outs to my job, and nearly every job is handled differently, and sometimes stuff gets by me. My first week on the job, the owner of the company yelled at me because I fixed one thing on a baseball schedule, and made an error elsewhere. I blamed the system I use for processing jobs, and I didn’t realize until later it was actually a judgment error. Needless to say, in my career, taking responsibility for your actions can have dangerous side effects, mainly you could get labeled a “Fuck Up”, and that’s the kiss of death.
Irregardless of that, I have decided to make sure that I take responsibility for my actions, if for no other reason, I’m sick of being afraid. I am not, however going out to find troublesome things to be responsible for, nor will I volunteer responsibility when it’s not my fault. Unless the boss is in a firing mood. I should add I will be responsible for my actions up to the point of stupidity. I have to remember flexibility in all things, as I am in danger of being to rigid. However, it is this quality of being accountable for my actions that I find to be empowering as it gives me purpose on the job at least.
By taking that responsibility in all areas of my life, I am granted the vision to see what it is, if anything that is wrong. And my life is, I’m have to admit, somewhat problematic because I don’t have that awareness. “What is my part in this?” is what I should be asking all the time. And I “should” be unflinching in my self-assessment because the issue is the huge disconnect between my image of myself and reality of myself. Witness the amazing powers of denial.
I have found at times when I do take responsibility for not only by actions, but responsibility for other things such as say, fielding a client phone call at work (which is not my job), that people tend to have a lot more respect for me as a person. And sometimes it spooks people too. I’ve picked up a little piece of paper next to a trashcan and put it in, and I’ve gotten stares from the passerbys. Strange.
Again, I’m at the end with no sum up thought. Uhhh… so kids, take responsibility for your actions and watch the magic happen. It gives you clarity of vision gobs of character and it helps define you as a person as opposed to scores of people who like to blame others for their personal misfortunes when they should clearly be pointing the finger squarely at themselves.
Irregardless of that, I have decided to make sure that I take responsibility for my actions, if for no other reason, I’m sick of being afraid. I am not, however going out to find troublesome things to be responsible for, nor will I volunteer responsibility when it’s not my fault. Unless the boss is in a firing mood. I should add I will be responsible for my actions up to the point of stupidity. I have to remember flexibility in all things, as I am in danger of being to rigid. However, it is this quality of being accountable for my actions that I find to be empowering as it gives me purpose on the job at least.
By taking that responsibility in all areas of my life, I am granted the vision to see what it is, if anything that is wrong. And my life is, I’m have to admit, somewhat problematic because I don’t have that awareness. “What is my part in this?” is what I should be asking all the time. And I “should” be unflinching in my self-assessment because the issue is the huge disconnect between my image of myself and reality of myself. Witness the amazing powers of denial.
I have found at times when I do take responsibility for not only by actions, but responsibility for other things such as say, fielding a client phone call at work (which is not my job), that people tend to have a lot more respect for me as a person. And sometimes it spooks people too. I’ve picked up a little piece of paper next to a trashcan and put it in, and I’ve gotten stares from the passerbys. Strange.
Again, I’m at the end with no sum up thought. Uhhh… so kids, take responsibility for your actions and watch the magic happen. It gives you clarity of vision gobs of character and it helps define you as a person as opposed to scores of people who like to blame others for their personal misfortunes when they should clearly be pointing the finger squarely at themselves.
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