Being Point

Tag: Responsibility

  • Contributing To Someone Else As A Means Of Leaving Something Better Than You Found It

    Leaving a situation better than you found it translates into the opportunity for taking complete responsibility in our personal relationships. Consider trying on the idea of being 100 percent responsible for the results of any relationship.

    This approach is best done with zero negative judgment as a means of asking the pure play question: what is my role in the dynamics of the relationship?

    Taking responsibility is central to the idea of leaving something – or someone – better than you found them. “Better” in this context means nothing even close to that you “fixed” or “improved” someone. Rather, it engages the idea of contribution to other(s).

    Can you think of people whom you leave – and have left – more empowered, more loved, more attended to than when you first met them? How much of that result was intentional? Who has contributed to you in such profound ways? Have you acknowledged that person(s) for leaving you better than you were found?

  • Replace “Get-To” And “Have-To” With “Choose-To”

    On our last of five days of considering “get-to” vs. “have-to,” Christina provides some great feedback:

    “Yes, there are some things we ‘have to’ do/be, etc. and that’s not necessarily a ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ thing … and it just might be a very positive thing for us to take on that sense of responsibility … sacrifice even. Words that scare us perhaps, but necessary ways of standing up for and shouldering what we need to take a stand for. And somehow it seems that it’s gone out of fashion/vogue to be the one not to divert our eyes; to be the one who will say, ‘no, no more of that,’ or ‘yes, I will take an unpopular or unsafe position on this issue.’ Sometimes we do ‘have to’ do things and maybe that’s just fine … it’s not victim-hood, it’s taking a necessary and vital stand.”

    Excellent feedback and true enough! There are some things that we “have-to” do – that we are compelled to do by duty, responsibility, honor, commitment, principle.

    Her words got me thinking: Perhaps simply losing any sense of being put upon – or unduly privileged- is a way to transcend this “have-to” vs. “get-to” paradigm?

    Perhaps the most accurate way to address this issue is to reframe it in a far more powerful way. Shift to “Choose-To”!

    How would focusing on “choose-to” make life clearer, more enjoyable, and far more powerful?