How to “Be Responsible”
How many times have you heard your parents ask you to “take responsibility?” Kids and teenagers dread these words because we don’t really understand what that means or exactly how to do it all the time. The very idea of being responsible all the time is exhausting for most of us.
What we usually don’t understand about the phrase “take responsibility” is that it basically means “solve your own problems.” As we get older we’re required to solve our own problems more and more. Finally when we’re adults we have to be totally responsible for our lives. We have to solve our own problems all the time!
So it’s a good thing that our parents give us practice with being responsible when we’re young so we have an idea of how we will do it when we’re older. So now that we’re able to see that taking responsibility is basically the same as solving problems things are a little easier to digest. Here are some examples of things your parents might tell you to be responsible for and how you can translate them so they make sense:
“Be responsible for your grades” = “If you have bad grades get better ones.”
“Be responsible for your brother” = “If your brother is having a problem, solve it.”
“Doing drugs is not very responsible” = “Doing drugs causes problems you can’t solve.”
If there were no problems in the world, we wouldn’t need to be responsible, but since there are problems to solve everyday, we need a plan. Problem solving and taking responsibility begins with actually figuring out what our problem is. Once you know what’s wrong with a situation then you can actually begin to make changes in your environment.
A great place to start is by asking yourself “why?” You can do this over and over until you figure out what’s truly wrong because usually problems don’t just lie on the surface; they’re usually deeper reflections of other issues. Here is an example:
“Why am I doing poorly in Algebra II?”
“I’m doing poorly because I fail all the tests”
“Why am I failing all the tests?”
“I’m failing all the tests because I don’t study”
“Why don’t I study?”
“I don’t study because I get angry every time I need to study for Algebra tests.”
“Why am I so angry about these tests?”
“I’m angry because I don’t like the teacher so I refuse to study.”
After really getting to the bottom of your issue, you can see that failing a subject because you don’t like someone is pretty unreasonable especially if you are capable of understanding the material. Responsibility and problem solving apply to everything in life because there are problems to solve everywhere. Even your emotions are something that you can take responsibility for. Emotions like anger that you feel for a teacher.
Remember: “Take responsibility” means “Solve your own problems” and there are a lot of problems that you absolutely can!