Let me ask you a tricky question.
Would you rather live in a world where everything is a result of fate and you have absolutely no free will, or a world where you have ultimate free will, and nothing at all is predetermined?
At first glance this might seem like a silly question. After all, the first world is basically a perfect prison, you have absolutely no free will, you just do things because that was how you were always going to do them.
But maybe it’s not such a silly question after all…
Remember, in a world where there were no free will, there would be no responsibility either. Nothing could ever be your fault. You’d never be to blame. And all you have to trade is your power of will…
It’s like something out of the Stephen King movie Needful Things. The devil’s willing to sell you something powerful, but it comes at a terrible price.
It’s a tricky question because that desire to be blameless tends to sneak up on people. We wind up saying or doing things to get out of responsibility without even thinking that much.
We are given this choice on a moment by moment basis. The choice to either realize our responsibility in the interpretation of our world, or to pretend it’s not our responsibility, that it’s just “objective” reality. That there was nothing we could do.
It might sound simple to notice, but think of all of the ways that we play this game. You might recognize some of the creative ways of giving up responsibility listed below.
- “That’s not what I said!”
- “You make me mad/sad/furstrated/happy (yes even happy)!”
- “It’s not my fault you…”
- “I can’t stand that.”
- “I didn’t have a choice.”
- “You can’t do this to me.”
- “If only I were lucky like her…”
The reason that this is so important is that responsibility and personal power are tied up tighter than a Shibari convention (google it). You can’t give up responsibility without losing personal power.
The more power you want in your life, the more responsibility you will need to take. Let me show you with a quick thought experiment.
Imaging for a second that you were the popular conception of God (all-powerful, all-knowing).
The thing about God’s power is that it would literally mean that everything would be your responsibility. Nothing could happen in the entire universe without you knowing about it and being able to do something about it.
Talk about putting on your big-girl pants.
Notice that the ONLY way that we can get rid of any of God’s responsibility is by getting rid of some of God’s Power. If there are things that God can’t do, then God couldn’t be responsible for those.
This is a continuum that goes all the way down through each human’s personal experience. The more power you want, the more responsibility you will need to take.
So in one post we’ve talked about God, the devil, and the Japanese art of tying knots. So you might be wondering what’s the take away here?
Making a commitment to take 100% responsibility for your life, and your interpretation of it, is the single most important thing you can do to increase your personal power.
What might happen if you start to notice all of the opportunities to take more responsibility in your life? What’s the maximum responsibility you can take?
May you live all of your days deliberately.
