Ah, so it seems the draft on this one I created yesterday has disappeared. So I now take the ability to “respond” to this situation by starting anew. How appropriate. lol
I pondered, likely for the millionth time, the word responsibility. In our culture there is the energy of guilt and shame with it along with a dose of rugged individualism. We feel guilty or shame if we struggle to deal with a personal issue or crisis. It isn’t “ok” to feel those moments, however long, of powerlessness or weakness. Then we often fall back on the feeling that we gotta go it alone.
I recall in the mid 90’s reading a different perspective on the word “responsibility”. It is simply the ability to respond to a situation.
That’s it. The ability. To respond.
At the time and today ability to respond that varies with each person, depending on the situation, the strengths and weaknesses of the person. Such a perspective on responsibility is a much more loving, thoughtful approach to the term, and to one another.
The various systems put challenges into those situations in which we are to take responsibility. Our pay-to-live system creates all sorts of obstacles. As I often say, I COULD take more responsibility for my health, for example, if I had more money to get those things I need for things not covered by insurance. I COULD give myself a much needed vacation to the coast if we knew someone with a house we could stay in free of charge. I WOULD hire a web designer/marketer if I could barter or agree to pay AFTER the income went up.
Etc. etc.
Eating is expensive – certainly eating healthy. And food bank food is hardly healthy, but it will keep a belly full in those times when money is limited. Again, one is forced to respond in the best way possible given the limitations and challenges imposed by a pay-to-live system.
I look around and see the homeless people in my community alone. Most of them if not all resulting from the struggle to be responsible, the challenge to respond to their various situations whether that be financial, employment, emotional/mental, health. The blame I still see them facing by people who don’t have a heart-felt ability to see past their limited perspectives and judgments gives me distress.
Perhaps such people too lack the ability to respond to the situation in a more thoughtful manner?
The system(s) impinge us at every facet, every turn of our life.
My point is…. I cringe within whenever I hear anyone claim we and we alone are responsible for our lives. No one else or nothing else is. Yes, we each are powerful in our own right. Yes, we must motivate ourselves, make choices and the like.
And yet, who lives in a vacuum? Aren’t we all here together? It isn’t just to pass one another by in the store or on the streets. It isn’t just to put one another into categories of us and them and you and he and she.
And it sure as heaven is NOT to power-over others. That right there HAS TO GO. Crash it. Crumble it away. Rise up and proclaim we are DONE with paying to live. And as we take this stand and it does dissolve (and it is), the ability TO respond to our particular challenges WILL be easier to take on. And when ALL that has been hidden from us, stolen from us, is returned, again, personal challenges will be much easier to handle.
And when we have the freedom TO live and be and do like this, it frees up our personal energies to be more of service.
Take care of self first with supportive energies.
Take care of others too with the same.
It really is that easy.
That is all for now.
Much love,
Victoria
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