Accidentals: Responsibility
Responsibility is a concept which is slowly fading away from people's dictionaries. It is often confused with accountability, its more tangible substitute. While accountability is about holding us responsible for our own mistakes, responsibility is much more personal.
It describes the wight one has to bear to properly fulfill their duties. It is said that a king carries the weight of the kingdom on his shoulder. Likewise a judge carries the weight of the courtroom, and a butcher, the weight of his shop. Responsibility drives us to do things right, and do them better every time. It is, in some sense, the mother of accountability: a bigger more encompassing concept. Not all can bear its burden. I, for one, decided politics was not for me. The impact of political decisions, I reasoned, was far too large for me to accept.
Some may say people with high sense of responsibility shun it. If that is the case, what shall we say of doctors? I'd say I'm open to become a Doctor of Medicine, because every time a physician sits to solve a problem, he really is only considering a solution for a single patient. There are special cases where quarantine must be called for, at which point the doctor is responsible for the lives of, perhaps, all of humanity! Those are a few and far in between, one can only hope. As for politicians, massive impact to their decisions is normal everyday life. In every decision they consider the lives of the many. This considering is what responsibility truly means. Sadly, some call the shots with utter disregard to the value of human life.
On the bright side, however, because responsibility is an internal psychological process, we may never really know if people really are irresponsible! They could actually be less reckless, spontaneous, or unaccountable, than we think they are.
It describes the wight one has to bear to properly fulfill their duties. It is said that a king carries the weight of the kingdom on his shoulder. Likewise a judge carries the weight of the courtroom, and a butcher, the weight of his shop. Responsibility drives us to do things right, and do them better every time. It is, in some sense, the mother of accountability: a bigger more encompassing concept. Not all can bear its burden. I, for one, decided politics was not for me. The impact of political decisions, I reasoned, was far too large for me to accept.
Some may say people with high sense of responsibility shun it. If that is the case, what shall we say of doctors? I'd say I'm open to become a Doctor of Medicine, because every time a physician sits to solve a problem, he really is only considering a solution for a single patient. There are special cases where quarantine must be called for, at which point the doctor is responsible for the lives of, perhaps, all of humanity! Those are a few and far in between, one can only hope. As for politicians, massive impact to their decisions is normal everyday life. In every decision they consider the lives of the many. This considering is what responsibility truly means. Sadly, some call the shots with utter disregard to the value of human life.
On the bright side, however, because responsibility is an internal psychological process, we may never really know if people really are irresponsible! They could actually be less reckless, spontaneous, or unaccountable, than we think they are.
