I’m tired of being unaccountable for my actions.
I’m tired of living in a culture that tells me it’s okay, I can do what I want. I’m tired of being told that everything is subjective, tired of being told that I can rationalize away my worst thoughts and deeds. I’m tired of being able to chalk my lowest moments up as ‘learning experiences.’
I’m tired of seeing people make commitments to each other with no intention of honoring them. I’m tired of hearing about couples getting married only to divorce within a few months. I’m tired of flippant, off-hand comments about someone cheating on someone else, as if such behavior is natural, expected, normal.
I’m tired of being let off the hook.
I want to meet people who don’t insist I put on a mask to hide my faults. I want to meet people who are willing to call me on my bullshit.
I write one day about the perils of greed, and the very next I pass right next to a guy asking me for help. Call me on it.
I say something in jest that makes someone feel a little less respected, a little less honorable, a little less beautiful, a little less amazing than they are. Call me on it.
I cut corners on a project because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is giving 150% anyway. Call me on it.
I write something clever. People tell me it’s clever. I puff myself up like I was the source of my ideas, my intellect. Call me on it.
Don’t tell me that I’m being too hard on myself when I point out my faults. Help me work on them, help me become a better person, help me keep the curtain pulled back. Don’t make it easy for me to slip back into normal habits. Expect better from me.
And then take the next step. Expect better from yourself as well. Don’t put on the mask. Someone asks you how you’re doing – tell them. Show your warts. Talk about your demons. Ask to be held accountable.
It’s so much easier for us to slip into a mode that says everything is okay, as long as we’re happy. It’s easy because no one expects anything more from us. Because if they expect more from us, they have to take the next step and expect more from themselves. And that’s a difficult thing to do.
I don’t know how to change the world for the better. I don’t know how to convince our leaders to make intelligent, moral decisions.
But I do know that if I want to hold them accountable, I have to start with myself first. I can’t rail againt my leaders or my friends or my family for lying or cheating or stealing or boasting or hurting others unless I’m willing to first confront myself.
And when I do confront myself, openly, honestly….I find a lot of dirt.
There are so many things I do – daily – that I’m not proud of. Things I’d like to do differently. I screw up all the time. I’m not strong enough to live the way I know I should. Not on my own.
I need someone to hold me accountable. But the person holding me accountable can’t do so unless they first examine themselves. And once they do so, they find a lot of dirt. They discover that they too need someone to hold them accountable.
Our lives, the organism of humanity, appears to me to be more and more related to accountability. We are not islands. The decisions we make impact us, often in the long term, almost certainly in the short term. Our decisions impact those around us, those we love, those we don’t even know exist.
Unfortunately, our nature seems to lend itself to screwing up. Nobody’s perfect, and that’s probably on purpose. But the answer to screwing up is not to be let off the hook. The answer isn’t to rationalize it away. The answer isn’t to call it life and forget about it. The answer is to strive to be better – to resolve to lie to each other less, steal from each other less, hurt each other less.
And the best way I’ve found to support our push to be better is to have someone to hold us accountable. Someone who loves us enough to not let us off the hook, to cheer us on when we succeed, to rebuke us and build us up when we fail.
Are you willing to be held accountable? Are you willing to examine yourself? Are you willing to hold someone you love accountable n similar fashion?
If we did so, I bet the world would very quickly become a much different place.
