The new definition of responsibility.

The word RESPONSIBILITY can be confusing. Most of us look at it as kind of a negative. We see it as something that we have to do, an obligation — heavy and serious. We NEED to be responsible, we HAVE take care of things, people, tasks, etc. It feels like a weight on our backs and our minds.

re·spon·si·bil·i·ty | rəˌspänsəˈbilədē | noun | the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.

I am going to give you another way to define responsibility: THE ABILITY TO RESPOND.

Whenever something happens to us, either expected or out of the blue, we always have the ability to respond. So don’t think of responsibility as “taking on something”, think of it as “responding to something”.

We always have choices and we can take a minute to look over our options and decide how to respond. (That decision is not only the ACTION we take, but how we choose to FEEL about it.)

First and foremost, don’t spend too much time forecasting and expecting terrible things to happen. You’ll then emotionally live through it when most of the time it never happens. That is really not very smart, because you are suffering needlessly!

When something does happen, accept that maybe there isn’t anything you can do about it. If you CAN do something about it, the time to respond is right THEN! Figure out what you need to do about it and address it and move on.

Think about this definition of responsibility and replace the old notion with the new!