"Don't think that relating to people is the icing on the cake. It IS the cake. Real listening is having the willingness to be changed by what the other person has to say. Relating happens not when you are TALKING but when you are listening and in between listening and talking.
When you are willing to be changed, when you are really listening, life becomes much more interesting than when you are engaged on a simple exchange of monologues, duelling monologues."- Alan Alda
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
433. Taking Responsibility
Tread a careful path between taking too much and too little responsibility. Only take as much credit as you consider your due. Do not duck your responsibilities or ignore problems until they grow out of proportion. Always remember that the best time to kill a monster is while it is still small. When considering relationships with other people or institutions, remember that the appropriate measure of responsibility is that you should take 100% responsibility for yourself and 50% responsibility for the relationship. In other words you must be fully responsible for yourself and live up to your values. When it comes to the relationship, once you have done your part, it is up to the other party to do theirs. You do not have to control it totally, nor should you allow the other side to control it 100%. - Their responsibility, too is only 50%.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
165. Responsibility
Take responsibility. You must always take 100% responsibility for yourself, your actions, decisions, failures etc. You are not responsible for other (adult) people. In any relationship you are 50% responsible. You must live up to your half always. This is what it means to take ownership of your life.
"To do the duty of another is fraught with danger." -The Bhagavad Gita. When you take on the responsibility of the work of another you are on the road to burn-out. You are training the other to shirk his obligations and you are leaving yourself open to attack and lawsuits if something were to go wrong. Mind your own business !
Being responsible has two faces :
1. You are responsible FOR yourself.
2. You are responsible TO others.
Being responsible for yourself means dealing with your feelings, attitudes and behaviours so that they become ever more supportive of your needs and your obligations. Know where the limits are.
Being responsible to others means helping them to do what they cannot do for themselves and ensuring that you treat them with absolute fairness.
If you take on large burdens and try to do it all by yourself, as if this were a part of your normal load then you will be crushed by the burden. Then you will be of no use to yourself or to anyone else. (Irresponsible).
If you act as though your normal duties and responsibilities were someone else's duty, then you are being irresponsible in the other direction.
The penalty for being irresponsible is that you do not have any control of the consequences and you might very well not like how things turn out.
Being responsible does not mean that everything that goes wrong for you is your fault. Responsibility is defined as the ability to respond. You are responsible for how you respond i.e. what your next action will be and for how you interpret the experience but not necessarily the cause of the experience itself.
If you attribute the causes of bad things to yourself your energy drops and the effect on you is Negative. If you externalise it, your energy rises and the effect on you is Positive.
Warning : Others will often try to get you to attribute blame to yourself in an attempt to externalise their responsibilities. This is called laying a guilt trip on you.
Rejections etc., are specific occurances and you shouldn't interpret them as having any long lasting or global significance. The past does not equal the future and if you have done your best (be honest here), then they are not your fault.
The ability to respond means the ability to speak and act effectively and intelligently and not simply react in a knee-jerk fashion.
"To do the duty of another is fraught with danger." -The Bhagavad Gita. When you take on the responsibility of the work of another you are on the road to burn-out. You are training the other to shirk his obligations and you are leaving yourself open to attack and lawsuits if something were to go wrong. Mind your own business !
Being responsible has two faces :
1. You are responsible FOR yourself.
2. You are responsible TO others.
Being responsible for yourself means dealing with your feelings, attitudes and behaviours so that they become ever more supportive of your needs and your obligations. Know where the limits are.
Being responsible to others means helping them to do what they cannot do for themselves and ensuring that you treat them with absolute fairness.
If you take on large burdens and try to do it all by yourself, as if this were a part of your normal load then you will be crushed by the burden. Then you will be of no use to yourself or to anyone else. (Irresponsible).
If you act as though your normal duties and responsibilities were someone else's duty, then you are being irresponsible in the other direction.
The penalty for being irresponsible is that you do not have any control of the consequences and you might very well not like how things turn out.
Being responsible does not mean that everything that goes wrong for you is your fault. Responsibility is defined as the ability to respond. You are responsible for how you respond i.e. what your next action will be and for how you interpret the experience but not necessarily the cause of the experience itself.
If you attribute the causes of bad things to yourself your energy drops and the effect on you is Negative. If you externalise it, your energy rises and the effect on you is Positive.
Warning : Others will often try to get you to attribute blame to yourself in an attempt to externalise their responsibilities. This is called laying a guilt trip on you.
Rejections etc., are specific occurances and you shouldn't interpret them as having any long lasting or global significance. The past does not equal the future and if you have done your best (be honest here), then they are not your fault.
The ability to respond means the ability to speak and act effectively and intelligently and not simply react in a knee-jerk fashion.
Friday, July 30, 2010
115. Your Life is up to You
You are responsible for how you lead your life. You must take responsibility for your behaviour,thoughts, speech and actions. You cannot talk your way out of situations into which you have behaved yourself. You are not responsible for those things that happen exeternally. Things very often happen through no fault of your own. There are plenty of people who will try to blame you for these. You need to be very clear about which of these things are and are not your responsibility. Keep refining your clarity. Be particularly careful of your speech. Your speech is hugely influential. If you say things to people they very often will act on your words. When speaking, you must first be very clear in your own mind what it is you want to convey. Then formulate it in such a way that there is no ambiguity. Make any important distinctions as clear as possible and explain them in a logical manner. Finally, watch and listen at least twice as much as you speak.
You will be deeply affected by the relationships in your life but you can never blame your problems on anyone else. If, for example you have a problem with the way someone is treating you, it has arisen because you have, in some way, taught that person to treat you in this way.
If you are to succeed, you will encounter many failures on the way. This can be discouraging if you allow it to be. It need not be. You can seek support from those around you. This is one thing but you must not allow yourself to rely on some overly responsible individual to bail you out time and again from spiritual, emotional, financial or relational difficulties. To do so would be extremely unhealthy.
You will be deeply affected by the relationships in your life but you can never blame your problems on anyone else. If, for example you have a problem with the way someone is treating you, it has arisen because you have, in some way, taught that person to treat you in this way.
If you are to succeed, you will encounter many failures on the way. This can be discouraging if you allow it to be. It need not be. You can seek support from those around you. This is one thing but you must not allow yourself to rely on some overly responsible individual to bail you out time and again from spiritual, emotional, financial or relational difficulties. To do so would be extremely unhealthy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
