There's Freedom in Responsibility
The other day, I was standing by the lake watching the sunrise as I've done many times before. The sky was all shades of blues, greys, and yellows as the clouds, round and robust, filtered the sun's rays. The chilling westerly breeze reminded me that it's still winter here in Canada. I could feel my body wanting to defend itself from the cold but I was too taken by the scene to bother - and so my body, it relaxed. A congregation of mallards and geese bathed between thin sheets of ice - like it was just another day at the spa. One would plunge into the dark water while another shot shoots up. A quack here and a quack quack there - as I believe the childhood song would go.
This is life unfolding. No resistance. No limits. No debate on how it should be. Life carries on without asking, "How am I doing today?" Or, "How do feel about it this morning?" Isn't that the way life should go? Everything freely responds to everything, without a vote, an opinion, or concern about how we feel about it. Isn't this freedom?
To be fully engaged in life, to choose freely, requires us to be responsible - that is to exercise our ability to respond to what life gives us. Our sense of responsibility expands to incorporate all of life as we accept life for what is, not for what we think it should be. When we stay in our minds, assessing the situation, judging, resisting, and saying to ourselves, "I can't be responsible for this or that!" or "this is how it should be!"? we're making life conditional. Is there freedom in that?"
Being responsible has been corrupted into the notion that we must be held accountable for the choices we make. It's become about blame, shame, and guilt. It's about having a moral obligation to others and the whole. And we've become so opposed to being held accountable or feeling obligated to anyone, that we've reduced our choices in life to only that which we feel we have control over. We're focused on our own personal wants, rights, and preferences, regardless of the consequences they may have on life. What I've seen happen when we take on this meaning, is that we are constantly assessing the situation, that we hit a stalemate. Life becomes stuck. We've become anxious. We take on too much or too little. We point fingers or beat ourselves up for when life falls down. We conjure up irrational points of view of what's morally right or wrong, good or bad. When we are faced with things we can't control we become defensive, rigged, or quick to anger.
What I'm suggesting here, is being responsible - exercising your ability to respond is the way to be fully engaged with life, which comes with a deeper sense of freedom. It's like when the audience echoes a chorus in response to the lead singer. Or when we see a loved one in trouble and we jump in to save them. We're no longer stuck in our heads but instead, we're in tune with what's unfolding between us and the whole. We receive more out of life, not less, as we exercise a capacity or skill with to be it all.
It's in our nature to be responsible. We have the natural capacity to be responsible. Responsibility is fundamental to life. We can not be responsible without cutting off or removing ourselves from life. Because even if we think we're choosing not to be responsible for something, we are in fact responding. And observe what happens when we think we're choosing not to be responsible. We still contend with that aspect of life but from a place of blame, shame and guilt.
If we choose freely to be responsible, we can experience the abundance that comes with it. Just like watching nature unfold itself.