For months, I have been pondering what responsibility looks like when it comes to a job. It seems the idea of what is and isn’t responsible in this area is gray to most.
Some view responsibility as staying in a job for years that is unfulfilling and life sucking, just for a steady source of income for their families.
I don’t think we have been created with such splendidly specific gifts to just trudge through life and work this way. People often end up putting their best on a shelf, only to be brought down in the last few years of their lives. Their dreams are stashed away and only brought out on weekends or the two weeks of vacation they get per year.
I question whether this is actually responsible. How can it be when we have been given passions and desires for a reason?
How can our health and our relationships with our families not suffer when we are stifling that which is constantly crying out for fulfillment?
Therefore, responsible, what do you look like? Are you glazed over eyes and a shell of a person putting their time in for the supposed stability it offers? Or, are you passionate, throw all caution to the wind, and bowl everyone over in the process?
Perhaps you are not either one of these.
I think responsibility would look more like the following if we thought long and hard about it.
What responsibility really looks like
- Husbands and wives working together to support and encourage one another as they pursue their best lives. Lives passionately lived. Lives full of dreams pursued and hearts full, for the song in each of them is being loudly sung.
- Men and women who have the courage to pursue that which brings life to their deepest places.
- Having clear goals and working towards them with steel determination.
- Taking life’s hardships and failures, learning from them and moving on. Using failure to reshape and improve upon today so we can be wiser for tomorrow.
- Pursuing the talents only I am gifted with. Sharpening them through constant learning. Strengthening them through experience and using them to help and bless others.
- Being a passionate giver of my resources and time.
- Seeing beyond the here and now. Using perspective to constantly realign, having vision for what could be, and pursuing it.
- Being my best self for my husband and for my family. The best person I can be. Constantly improving, changing, and learning throughout my entire life!
This, to me, is responsible. This is a life well lived.
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” ~Helen Keller
If you want further inspiration, read this post by Kevin Miller which covers another aspect of this concept. Failure. It spoke volumes to me.
Question: What is responsible to you?
