What is responsibility? According to Google, responsibility is “the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization”. Now how can we take this word and put it into our day to day lives? Well everyone has responsibilities and you might not even know it. It could be something really small like brushing your teeth in the morning and night, you are accountable to be in charge of brushing your teeth. Or it could be something big, like going to work on time to provide for yourself and your family. Well either way, no matter how old you are, you will always have responsibilities to take care of.
It’s super important to teach this to younger kids, especially when they are in school. School may not be for everyone but it’s legally obligated to go until you are 16 years old. Well, anyways during those years that is mandatory to go school, it’s a good way to become a responsible kid. You learn to study, do your homework, and to attend class. If none of those things are accomplished there are consequences. Those consequences can be very minimal to extreme, depending on the severity of the situation. That’s how we get a glimpse of how the real world is. If you don’t go to work, you won’t get money, if you have no money, you can’t pay the bills, and if you can’t pay the bills you have nowhere to live, etc. This might be a very dramatic example, but in reality it happens a lot. We can help the next generations make this a habit, although there are consequences now, I personally believe there should be more strict consequences in order to help responsibility play out.
Here’s a lesson that I learned about being responsible. When I was a freshman in high school, I had just turned 14 in September, two months go by and it’s November. On this wonderful day, I just had happened to ask my dad for the car keys to “listen to music” and my rebellious side took over and I decided to go on a cruise. That cruise was cut short because I got pulled over, why you may ask? I was driving recklessly, and I had to got to court and do all of that fun stuff. But what did I learn from it? I learned to not drive without a license, especially if you are new to driving, and it taught to be a responsible driver, because not only is my life at risk, I’m putting others at risk because I didn’t know how to drive.
There are so many ways to act out responsibility, it’s up to you how you want to act it out. Again there are so many ways, and it doesn’t always have to be about school or work. Being responsible, it also means you are a leader and you are trustworthy because who would want to trust a “leader” when they can’t even being reliable. Maybe you aren’t a leader in your community, but you can be in your own life.
