Tea Leaves
I’m sitting here thinking about personal responsibility. Funny thing is, I’m not doing much work while I’m thinking about it. And I’m drinking tea. Specifically:
And Yogi Teas have a cool additional treat. They feature a saying. Mine says:
Your soul is the spirit of God.
Tall order, really, but it fits so well into what I was thinking. It’s Fig’s fault I was thinking this stuff. She was ranting about the responses she received when she said that fat people had to take personal responsibility for their condition, if they want to change their lot in life (and that’s a gross paraphrase of a great post, so go read the real one).
Habit 1 from Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to be proactive. Another way he says to think of that is to realize, “I’m the programmer.” I’m in charge of my destiny. I’m RESPONSIBLE. He even goes on to say that “responsible” is shorthand for being response-able. Able to respond. I’m just buzzing from this thought process. (The tea’s decaf, so you can’t blame it).
When I began my quest for self-improvement, the first thing I had to do was take account of all the things that weren’t going so well in my life and OWN them. I had to say, “All this stuff is messed up. Not *all* of it is my fault, but all of it is my responsibility to fix.” And this is how I work best.
Doesn’t mean I always live up to my personal responsibilities. I sure mess up. But I never once shirk the ownership of what’s mine to control. If things go wrong, I’ll be the first to say it’s my responsibility to fix what comes next. And that, I believe, is where the little slogan dangling from my bag of tea brings me back to my thoughts on Fig’s post:
Your soul is the spirit of God.
Final Disclaimer: I mean “God” to mean *.* I’m not religious. I gave up Catholicism for Lent. I only pray when I’m about to be in a car accident, if you count actual hands-clasped type prayers. Otherwise, I am saying “God” the way Sir Alec Guinness would’ve said, “The Force.” Okay?
Reading:
Funny as all hell. I laughed out loud three or four times last night before falling to sleep.
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Comments
I like the “response-able” idea. I’ve pretty much given up the hobby of deciding whether issues in my life are my “fault” or not, and dedicated the energy to being responsible, not blamed, for what happens (I backslide once in a while).
There’s always so much debate going on about whether obesity is the “fault” of any individual person, whether they have caused it, whether they are the victim of circumstances, etc. It’s a fascinating conversation to get into, but ultimately I’m not sure it’s relevant. What matters is what one is DOING about it. So I appreciate your post, for further clarifying to me that my life is about What I Do, not about What Has Been Done.
Apparently, there is a synchronity between us today. I also just now posted on a (non-religious) spiritual topic today.
hmmm…