“Self-Responsibility” is our Number One Responsibility

I begin Chapter 12, “Living Life, Responsibly,” of my pop-psych book, Living Life, Anyway, by saying:

Being a responsible person means that within the limiting realities of your power, control, and management, you consider yourself answerable and accountable for specific occurrences. Commensurately, you behave responsibly.

Later in that chapter, I also offer some specific suggestions regarding behaving responsibly:

…when a responsible person is under stress, under duress, or in trouble, it is important for him or her to remember some specific, helpful guidelines, such as the following “Three Don’t’s and seven Do’s” I typically offer people in troubled situations:

Don’t do anything stupid

Don’t do anything to excess

Don’t avoid reality

Do stop the downward trend (“Stop the bleeding”)

Do talk to someone who will be helpful to you

Do be aware of your own vulnerability

Do develop a support network

Do get into a good routine

Do remain active

Do remain aware

As the characters in my contemporary romance novels heal their wounds from previous relationships, such as Marcia does in Fear of Feeling Loved and Diane does in If Ever Again… It’ll be for Love, they do less of these above Don’t’s and more of the above Do’s. In the process, they essentially are becoming more and more self-responsible.

Question: On a scale from 1-10 (1 being “never” and a 10 being “always), how self-responsible are you?

Bill