Taking Responsibility

As you all I know Jason and I have 7 girls that we are raising. Three are not living with us, but we do have three 7th graders and a 4th grader living at home here in our sweet little house in the woods. Well, today went a little like this:

"Where are my grey pants?" (Child #1)

"Child #2 borrowed them last." (Child #3)

"NO! Child #3 wore them after I did (unlaundered of course, after all these are 7th graders)." (Child #2)
"That is SOOOOO not true! I put them on the floor right over there by the big pile of other clothes that I have not washed in two weeks and do not foresee the washing of them for several more weeks as they do not smell just yet. (Some of that last part was a combination of artistic expression and parental angst) (Child #3)

"Hey! I'll bet Child #4 took them!" (Child #1)

"Yes! I think I saw her wearing them after I did and Child #3." (Child #2)

"Yep! That is true, I saw her wearing them. MOMMMMMM!" (Child #3)

"What's going on?" (Mom)

The very important story unfolds with much frustration and indignation towards child #4.

"Well, let's ask child #4. Where is child #4?" (Mom)

"Oh, she is still in bed." (Child #1)

Of course the alarm has been going off and said child #4 is still in bed 30 minutes after she should be up.

So, that was quite the intro to "Taking Responsibility" and you might be asking yourself "What does a pair of grey size 1 pants have to do with me?" Nothing. It really has nothing to do with you, it is just a representation of the origination of our own inability to take responsibility for our own stuff. If you substitute cream boots or a curling iron, you will have the Grisham/Andrews household 25 years ago. Responsibility and taking ownership of your stuff is a really hard lesson to face and one that many people just have not learned. However, I can remember from a very young age having this lesson repeated time and time again. I have lost much to my inability to take responsibility for my actions, words and... well things I am responsible for.

As a business owner we have a whole lot of responsibilities, sometimes too many to handle. At times I feel as though I am in a boat with my husband and as soon as one leak is fixed there is another one and then another one until one of us is bailing water while the other is working to fix the leak. We find this in both business and family responsibilities. You look ahead on the horizon and you cannot even see land in the far distance. So, you have a choice, stop working, stop trying, and just sink. Or, you can keep trying, row when you can, bail out the waters of life when you need to and pray like anything what you have in your boat is enough to fix the leak. But never think for a moment that you are not responsible for your own boat.

Taking responsibility is like being child #1 and knowing that the reason she does not have her grey pants has very little to do with child #2 or #3 or even #4, but everything to do with her decision to watch TV and play instead of working on her laundry. She knows that each week she get one day to complete her laundry so that she has plenty of clothes to choose from during the week. Yet, to point that fact out brings a great amount of resistance into the picture. Now, she has to see that, yes, she loaned her pants out (mistake #1), and she did not retrieve them soon enough before Child #3 loaned them to Child #2 (mistake #2). The focus was on where the pants were instead of simply being able to go to the closet and ( since in a perfect world, her laundry would have been done) she could just pull them off the hanger and put them on (mistake#3).

So, what is the point? Maybe you do not have grey pants or a boat for that matter, but we all have responsibilities that we delegate off to other people. We do not manage those responsibilities and therefore we do not see the need to take responsibility when things do not work out the way that we hope they will. We try and create a hierarchy of blame that just goes on and on until we do what is right and stop the madness! Take ownership of your life, do not place blame on other people for decisions that they have made on your behalf that did not work out the way that you would like them to. Delegate, but delegate responsibly. And for goodness sake... do your laundry!