Radical Responsibility
Our state of being isn’t determined by our circumstances, but by our response to our circumstances. If I don’t like what I’m experiencing, I assume the only way I can influence my situation is to change myself. Therefore I aim to take radical responsibility: Full ownership of my experience.
In practice, it means noticing when I’m feeling sorry for myself or blaming others for things I don’t like— that’s where I’m delegating responsibility for my situation to a force outside of myself. I ask questions like:
How did my own actions lead to this outcome? What can I learn from that?
How can I see this situation as a positive rather than a negative?
What am I not seeing inside myself that is generating this outcome (especially if it seems to be a pattern)?
Asking these questions doesn’t mean I take responsibility for anyone else’s actions, sanction other people’s behaviors, or absolve them of responsibility. I may still hold people accountable or call them out on bad behavior. But ultimately, their behavior is their choice, not mine.
It also doesn’t mean I deny feelings like pain, disappointment, or sadness. It does mean I don’t blame other people for my feelings.
It certainly doesn’t mean I self-blame or -shame for “bringing this on myself”. I want to learn lessons moving forward, not make myself feel bad looking backward. Once I see how my actions contributed to the situation, I can remove the drama of blaming myself or others, and move on to resolving the issue.
We’re never going to be happy if our happiness depends on other people doing what we expect them to—that’s a level of control over the world around us we don’t have. Taking radical responsibility means we're only relying on our own abilities to make things happen the way we wish them to.
It doesn’t mean we have low expectations of the world or others; it just means we’ll be ok whether they meet our expectations or not.
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