Understanding responsibility

For some of us, or maybe even for most of us, we may have this idea or feeling that it is our responsibility to 'save the world'. We want to make things 'right'. We feel that it is up to us to 'fix' things.

Some of us may have had these thoughts or feelings before. This feeling of wanting to serve a meaningful purpose, or maybe just the feeling that whenever something around us is not quite 'right', we feel obligated to change this, because we want those around us to be happy.

If this is the case, if we ever had this thought or feeling, then we may want to take a pause and reflect on this situation a bit. Let's check up!

First of all, what is actually 'right'? What do we mean when we say we want things to be right? See, this is just a personal perception of what one may think or feel the ideal for a situation would be. This is just an opinion, a personal opinion. Or, a matter of perception, meaning how we see things.

Thus, we think or feel only what is right for us, in this current mindset or situation, but we do not see or understand what is 'right' in the bigger picture. Most of the time, we lack a bigger understanding.

When these feelings arise of wanting to 'save the world' or just make everything peaceful, we need to check on our intention or motivation. Why do we want to do this? Is it simply because the ideas of suffering and unhappiness make us uncomfortable? Or, do we want to be a hero, saving the day?

We check up.

What is behind our feeling of wanting things to be 'right'? For example, we want our loved ones to be constantly happy and at peace and we do not want to see them enduring any suffering. Why? Because of how much we care for them, or because of how this makes us feel? We may feel that seeing a loved one going through a hard time makes us feel miserable, we cannot stand to see a loved one suffering, and therefore we have this urge to change the situation or even feel responsible for their happiness and peace. Does this sound familiar?

We need to be very clear about our intentions. Of course, we do love others and we care for others, and some actions do come from real compassion, but is this always the case?

Think of how we feel when we have a loved one that is very sick, or that passed away. We feel so sad, crying, but why are we crying? Why are we sad? Because of losing a loved one? Because of how we feel? When a loved one is in hospital, sick, what do we feel? Do we feel 'poor me' and pity ourselves, but pretend to be sympathizing with the one that is actually suffering from sickness? Let's be honest with ourselves.

Introspection

Back to the sense of responsibility we feel of fixing things - we can let go of this idea. It is this idea that will bring us and those around us endless misery and unhappiness because this could lead to a 'me' just wanting things to be good for how this 'me' sees and understands the situation. Thus, just thinking about ourselves,

We are not responsible for bringing happiness to others, for taking the suffering of others. Let's repeat this, just to make it clear. It is not our responsibility to save the world, to take away the suffering of others. No. The only thing we can do is we can look at ourselves, check internally on ourselves and make sure that we are in peace, in true peace.

Our only responsibility lies internally. See, if we have peace inside, if we have happiness inside, wherever we go, we take this peace and happiness with us, and we share it wherever we go. Internal peace is projected outwards, and we create a peaceful reality for ourselves. Not only do we have peace, but those around us also benefit from our peace, because the presence of peace can be very healing.

At this point, some of us may feel that it is actually very selfish, thinking just about ourselves, just wanting peace for ourselves. Does this sound right? How can we only think about ourselves, when there are millions of refugees suffering, millions of people dying of illness, hunger, wars, etc.

Well, we are right to ask this question. Let's look at it like this. If we have peace internally, if we are truly at peace, we take this wherever we go. When people are in our presence, they can feel this peace we have, it is clearly visible. Thus, by having a peaceful presence, those around us are given peace at mind, as they know that we will not hurt them or harm them. We offer them peace too because they do not have to look over their shoulders all the time and need to be suspicious of what we may do to them.

We can intuitively sense harm or danger, and we tend to act accordingly. Some of us may have been in someone's presence, maybe in a bus or train, or in a public place, where we just get an uncomfortable feeling about someone, and through this, we pull your bag closer to us, we tuck our wallet deeper into our pocket or we make sure we hide our cellphone, as we feel vulnerable in the presence of this person. Has anyone ever experienced this? This is not a pleasant feeling. 

There is a story that the author once heard, and not completely sure of the origin. It may not be translated 100% accurately, but it goes something like this:

One day, a man approached his teacher and asked what he can do to bring peace to the whole world? The master answered: You can not cover the entire Earth in leather, but you can cover your own feet in leather.

Thus, we can not save the whole world, but we can save ourselves and spread the peace of our salvation accordingly. 

Wisdom and method

We have this wish or desire to help others, but we sometimes forget that just as we have our own life path, our own lessons to learn, in the same way, each individual has their own path to walk, their own life lessons to learn. We can not learn these lessons on behalf of others or walk the path on behalf of someone else, no. We only learn, grow, and develop through our own experiences. Thus, we should never try to take away the suffering of others, to take away their bad experience. We can only assist them through it, walk with them, and support them, but never try to make their path our own.

It is not in our hands to take away the lessons life brings to others. By wanting to take away everyone's suffering or even our close loved ones' suffering, we stand the chance of creating even more suffering, unnecessary. When we perform acts that lack wisdom, we may do more damage to the situation than helping. With wisdom, we learn that we can merely assist others on their path, walk with them, instead of for them.

Think of this example; A loved one may have picked up a virus and needs to stay in the hospital for a week. Our first intention may be to pray for them to get better immediately, to recover quickly, and to be out of this situation and to return back to their normal life. However, in the bigger picture, this person actually needs this 'off' time, because they need to reflect on their lives. Their busy lifestyles may not have offered them an opportunity to quiet down and check up internally. Thus, the Universe grants this opportunity for this person to slow down and to observe within, in order to make some beneficial changes in their life. Think about this. 

Of course, we only see the pain and suffering and the immediate wish would be for this to be 'fixed'. However, when applying wisdom, we see that our actions may actually be a bit selfish, as we take away the opportunity for someone to grow and develop. Through wisdom, we learn to change our perception from an individual level to a broader understanding. Instead of wishing that a person gets out of hospital immediately, we can wish for them to use this time beneficially to do some internal work.

To conclude, by understanding that our only responsibility lies internally and not externally, we can take a huge load off ourselves. We accept that each person has their own path, just as we do. We work on internal peace and happiness and do not put ourselves through the exhaustion and frustration of desiring to solve humanity's problems. Finally, our internal peace manifests externally, and through inner peace, we create a peaceful world. 

A photo taken of two boys in Nalanda, India, 2017.
This reminds us that we can not take away the suffering of others, but we can support them unconditionally.