Tag: Responsibility

A Poverty of Understanding

Posted on by jabittan
Author Corey Booker reflected on a conversation he had with a mentor of his, Frank Hutchins, in his book United. He goes into detail explaining some of the lessons Frank taught him and some of Frank’s views of the world. One big focus was on a lack of empathy, or shared understanding of each other’s circumstances, and how that impacts the way that we treat each other and approach the world. Describing Frank’s views, Booker wrote,

“What made … negative conditions persist, he believed, was an insidious poverty of understanding, a poverty of empathy. People’s inability to see what is going on in the lives of their fellow citizens, to understand what so many American’s endure, creates an atmosphere that allows injustice to fester and proliferate.”

Our American culture encourages us to think about ourselves before others and to focus on what the things and opportunities of our own before we think about how our choices impact the lives of others. We do not spend a lot of time thinking about the experiences of others and we hold up our own success as evidence of our greatness, proof that we are good people, and as an excuse to ignore those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Frank Hutchins would have argued that we need to listen and spend more time with those around us, in our neighborhood, at our children’s schools, and in our community and those communities near us to better understand the experiences and realities of other people. If we focus only on ourselves, the things we have, and the things we want, then we will never be able to develop a sense of empathy focused on other people and their well being. We will turn away from those in society who truly need help as we explore ways to have and achieve more for ourselves.

A major struggle of our politics today is determining how large a role personal responsibility should play in our success and how much assistance and aid we should receive from other people. When we fail to understand the experiences of others and generalize our experience to the rest of the world we can never reach an honest starting point to sort out the details of the personal responsibility discussion. Our success and our material desires drive us to seek more and seek what other people have, and it becomes tempting to believe that we achieved based on our own merit, and that those who do not enjoy our same comforts somehow lack personal responsibility or an industrious mind. This is the heart of the lack of understanding and empathy that Hutchins described.

Stepping beyond ourselves, our experiences, and our narrow perspectives requires truly interacting with other people and other communities that we often would not see. By putting our material desires and drive for success aside, we can look at other people and actually see them, and begin to think about the advantages we experience, the smart decisions we were able to make as a result, and how other people perhaps never had those advantages. Individually we won’t solve the question of how much personal responsibility plays into each person’s situation, but we will be better able to empathize and understand the realities of the lives of our fellow American’s.

An Unwavering Commitment to the Common Good

Posted on by jabittan
This post is a continuation of my previous post: Personal Responsibility.

 

Growing-up, Senator Cory Booker was told over and over about the importance of taking ownership of his actions, his efforts, and his attitude. His mother demanded that he put his best effort into anything he did, whether it was cleaning the garage or going to school. His family demanded the best effort he could put forward because it was only through excelling personally that they believed one could make the biggest difference in the world. By accepting personal responsibility, one could give back to the community and put oneself in position to truly better society. Booker writes,

 

“My family also insisted that personal ethic must be seamlessly bound with a larger communal ethic, a sense of connectedness: a recognition that we are all part of something and have reaped the benefits of the struggles waged by those who had an unwavering commitment to the common good. From my earliest days, I was informed that I was the result of a conspiracy spanning apace and time—that billions of meritorious actions past and present yielded the abundance I enjoy.”

 

Booker’s quote ties into a growing belief that I have developed recently, that society only moves forward because some people decide to shoulder incredible burdens and responsibility, not for their own glory, but because they see the incredible benefit our society will receive. They may not be treated well, but they understand that society needs someone to put forth great effort even if there is little direct reward for them. This was true at our nation’s founding, and Joseph Ellis in his book The Quartet explained the incredible sacrifices and burdens carried by individuals to make American nationhood a possibility. Robert Morris essentially funded the Continental Army for two years with his own finances, despite public belief that he was profiting from the war for independence. In my own life I have seen this in the numerous sports coaches who served as mentors and teachers for me through the years, from my first basketball coach to my high school cross country and track and field coaches. With little reward and often much criticism from team members and parents, my coaches shouldered a responsibility to not just teach me sports, but to provide life lessons and moral guidance. Whether it is Robert Morris funding the fledging government under the Articles of Confederation, or a high school sports coach working with young children to help them grow, society demands that some individuals go beyond what is required of them to shoulder a greater portion of society’s demands.

 

The lessons I have learned through reading and sports experiences were taught to Booker growing up. His parents helped him see that his actions, and indeed his entire life, took place in a community, not a vacuum. Everything he did and every opportunity was the result of great people making sacrifices for a better tomorrow. Booker’s parents had been pioneers in the business world  as African American leaders in their companies, and they had benefitted by the few brave people who had stood up and carried the Civil Rights movement forward.

 

A line from Booker’s father is shared in the book to represent the humility with which his family approached the world and to represent the sense that his family had benefitted from those who came before them and laid the groundwork for their current success. “Son, don’t you dare walk around this house like you hit a triple, ‘cause you were born on third base.”

 

While Booker’s family stressed the importance of responsibility and taking ownership of one’s actions, behaviors, and decisions, they also recognized the importance of building an unwavering commitment to the common good into everything they did. Without focusing on community and without recognizing the incredible benefit that we receive from living in America, we risk living with an overinflated ego that leads to false beliefs of our own abilities and hides the efforts of other people to make our lives possible.

Becoming the Master of Our Own Destinies

Posted on by jabittan
Why do we hesitate before taking on new opportunities, especially when those opportunities are ones that we tell people we have wanted? Why do we wait for another person to be a catalyst for action in our own lives? These are questions that Colin Wright asks in his book Come Back Frayed. He looks at our hesitation during times of opportunity and our lack of self belief during  times of challenge, and encourages us to be the ones who drive and dictate our lives instead of leaving our lives to be shaped by people beyond us.  He writes,

 

“We create our own continuity. We mustn’t depend on someone else to construct our frame works for us. … But we are the masters of our destinies and direction. We are the most capable, competent, correct people for this particular job. All we have to do is recognize this and accept the responsibility.”

 

Wrights quote comes after an explanation of how our reactions to struggles either provide us with opportunity for growth or keep us from being able to change for the better. By adapting to the obstacles we face and using the experiences and challenges as building blocks for growth, we can make sure that our personal evolutions are marked by positive changes. When we do this, we create our own future. We decide how we will react to the world around us and build our own scaffolding toward the success we desire.

 

Throughout his writing, Wright seems to acknowledge how much of the world and universe truly lies beyond our control. We cannot shape how other people will behave, we cannot control natural disasters, and we cannot truly predict any future event, but this does not mean that we must surrender our lives and allow ourselves to be pushed in any direction by the forces outside ourselves. Instead, by controlling our mind (the only thing we can possibly have control over) we can shape the direction of our journey through the choices and reactions to those outside factors.

 

The first step in this process is accepting responsibility for our decisions, actions, and thoughts. From this point we begin to decide how we will react to what goes on around us and if we will use adversity to propel us forward. It requires that we stop looking at limitations in our lives as reasons not to move forward or pursue a goal, and it requires that we elevate our vision of what we believe possible for ourselves, recognizing that our mental framing will determine how creative our future can be, and how persistent we can be on our path forward.

 

I want to also push back against Wright’s quote and some of the suggestions that this perspective may create. Controlling the faculties of our mind and accepting responsibility for our own agency does not mean that we will find economic success, which is the default version of success that American’s refer to.  Epictetus certainly believed in his own agency in his thoughts, decisions, and reactions, but he lived as a slave for much of his life without an opportunity to pursue wealth. The forces that are beyond us may be so limiting as to squash any hopes that we have of reaching specific goals, especially in a world so easily shaped by inherent bias, but nevertheless, we can thoroughly evaluate our motivations and goals, and always find a reasonable measure of success which does not tie in with monetary figures set by people external to us. Wright’s suggestion encourages us to pursue great goals and to be the agents driving toward those goals, and while it is important to practice building that mindset, what we also must consider is how arbitrary those goals can become, especially if not set by ourselves and our own true reflection.

Reputation

Posted on by jabittan
In his collection of thoughts, Meditations, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote about the lessons he learned from those around him when he was growing up and maturing into an emperor who would be known for his wiseness.  In his writing he dedicates a long section to the lessons he learned from his father. One of his lessons deals with reputation and how we see our reputation. Aurelius writes, “He was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man’s act.” I highlighted this section because I think that it is an idea and perspective that I want to cultivate, but that I find difficult to live out.

 

The lesson that Aurelius learned from his father and focused on as he wrote this section is to think of others and to think of society before thinking of oneself.  To truly commit to the causes at hand requires a certain selflessness that cannot be fostered if your main focus is on what you will receive by taking part in acts that are beneficial to the whole.  It is not a bad thing to recognize that benevolent actions and social engagement will have positive outcomes for you as an individual, but it is a bad thing to participate in outreach programs if you are only doing so to enhance your own reputation.

 

As a whole, our society in the United States recognizes that it is not always a bad thing to volunteer time, effort, or money toward positive causes with a thought of a reward at the end. We offer tax write-offs, provide t-shirts and donuts, and dedicate space to the names of volunteers on plaques or buildings as a way to encourage and recognize those who do good in our society.  Benefitting from the good you do for others is not a bad thing, and offering small rewards may help others move in a direction where they become more generous with their time and money and are more willing to help others.

 

The real challenge is finding a way to do good acts without expecting some sort of reward or recognition.  The more we can focus on doing good because we feel that it is our social responsibility or because we understand that it gives our lives internal meaning, the more we can engage in social causes and become fully committed to our actions. Participating to be noticed and recognized means that our full energy and effort is not being brought to the table, and as a result we are not doing the most good we can do.

Owning Our Mistakes

Posted on by jabittan
Fred Kiel gives a few examples of what it means to be a great leader for a company in his book, Return on Character, where he focuses on the ties between strong moral values, success, and leadership. One of the examples he gives of what it means to be a leader who focuses on ethical and moral strengths involved owning up to our mistakes and being honest and forgiving with ourselves and others when we make mistakes.

 

In his book he tells a story to focus on a fictional character who does not receive a promotion. The character then begins to examine himself through a process of self-reflection to understand how he can change his behaviors and actions to enhance the skills that he had already developed. One area he identified for growth involved abandoning his habit of creating excuses for mistakes and failures, and working to better accept his errors. Kiel uses the simple example to show how an individual can become a stronger leader by beginning to better understand their mistakes and take responsibility rather than pushing blame onto others. Kiel’s character began to see that accepting his mistakes and forgiving himself for his errors made him a leader with stronger character, helping him connect better with those in the workplace. Kiel wrote of his fictional character’s change, “By owning up to his own mistakes, he would communicate to others in a very powerful way that he cared for them as people. He was telling them that he’s no better than they—that he shares a common humanity with them.”

 

By being honest and leading with character Kiel explains that we become more likable as people. Those around us with whom we work, spend time with, and live with will find us to be more complete when we acknowledge our mistakes. If we do not honestly address our mistakes then we put ourselves above others on a pedestal of perfection, and we fail to recognize an important part of our humanity.

 

Kiel also suggests that owning up to our mistakes helps make us better leaders and  more successful individuals. Failures and errors are things we will all experience and being able to recognize those shortcomings in a safe way will help us move forward. This part of his message reminds me of the advice that Bob Schacochis shared with James Harmon for him to publish in his book, Take My Advice. Schacochis writes of his early days working as a carpenter, “When it comes to making mistakes a bad carpenter and a good carpenter is the same. The only difference is, the good carpenter figures out how to correct his.” What he is saying is that we will all have errors along the way, but to truly be good we must recognize those errors and take the time correct them, allowing us to grow.  We can’t expect to be perfect and we can’t expect others to be perfect, but we can expect everyone to own up to their mistakes and to find ways to correct their errors.