Isn’t it funny how you might run across an instance of something that doesn’t seem to be all that much at the time, but as the days and weeks go by that same message keeps cropping up in various different areas.  Each time being a bit more prominent and more complex than the last.  The big one that keeps tapping me on the shoulder lately has been the concept of personal responsibility.

This is something that is a very basic, but important tenet for most (not all, by any means) Pagans and Wiccans.  This idea that we are each responsible for our own actions and the consequences of those actions, whether they be positive or negative.  It was something that was discussed recently in this post on The Green Witch’s blog.  Taking responsibility for ones actions is something that I find hugely important and really adhere to paying attention to how what I do spreads out to effect others, so having this concept come up in conversation is not overly surprising.   What is surprising, is where this discussion (along with a few others elsewhere) has led me.

The idea of personal responsibility is, on the surface, a very simple concept.  You think before you act and take the weight of that act along with you.  Simple, right?  Well, no, not really.  You can never fully anticipate how your actions could spread out or what they could effect.  You have to be willing to take the unseen as well as the seen.  Again that seems on the simple side and somewhat obvious.  What about those that take the concept of responsibility too far?

There are those that will never take responsibility for a thing they say or do, always trying to place that on someone else.  They are the ones that like to lay blame, always in the mindset of “If this didn’t…” or “if they hadn’t…, then I wouldn’t…”  There are also those that take responsibility for not only their own actions but those of others as well, but only when it can benefit them.  Like the person at work who you had to help with a project and he takes all the credit.  That same person will probably not take responsibility at all if that project ended up a failure. 

Then there are those that take the concept of personal responsibility too far the other direction.  They still take responsibility for the actions of others and the resulting consequences, but they are very rarely the positive consequences and it is not done for self gain.  They are the ones that tend to take on the responsibility for the negative actions of others on top of what is truly their own.  These are the people who, whether they realize it or not, are basically blaming themselves.  They have a difficult time finding the line of where their responsibility ends and another’s begins.

I had thought that I was a rather balanced person when it came to taking responsibility for my actions.  Thanks to some rather wonderful friends and a few gentle (and not so gentle -  hey, I’m stubborn, what can I say) bonks on the head, I have seen that I’m not as balanced as I thought.  I fall squarely into the group that takes on the responsibility of others and carry around a whole lot of self blame.  It has been rather eye opening and thought provoking.

Like so very many things in life, there is a very thin line between self blame, personal responsibility, ego stroking, and blame for others.  Also like many other things in life, it takes practice, balance and a conscious effort not to cross that line into unhealthy behavior.  Maybe now that I am aware of where I tend to walk, I can take a few steps the other direction and find that balance.  Maybe now I can see that even though I play a part in this lovely, crazy thing called life, and even though I have the responsibility for that part, I am not responsible for the other characters or their actions or the results of their actions.  They are their own to carry, willing or not.

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