By Pearson Mbendera
(News Of The South) -It takes a bigger man to take responsibility for his own actions. We all rejoice and praise ourselves when we accomplish something huge but rarely do we talk about what we did wrong in certain situations. Sometimes people take credit for something they are not responsible for and yet blame others for what they would have failed to do. Truth is there is more to taking responsibility than just winning or losing. All the hidden lessons in failure can only be uncovered when one takes responsibility for his actions.
I’m yet to meet anyone who hasn’t failed in his or her life. The only way a person would live a life free of failure is if they have never tried anything. Even that is hard, sometimes circumstances will force you to try something out. Truth is, not every time we try something will it succeed, thus failure is so common to everyone. And we all fail for different reasons, but whatever they are; rarely do people take responsibility of their actions.
In one interview, Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple computers once said, “There is no penalty for failure either psychologically or economically because even if you fail, you have gained all this valuable experience and discipline,” and that’s true, failure means you have taken a step ahead of someone who hasn’t done anything, you might not have accomplished anything yet, but you are better off now that you were because you have figured out what doesn’t work.
But what does it all mean. You can never learn from failure unless you have taken responsibility of your actions that have gotten you into this failed position in the first place. Otherwise you will keep on doing the same thing and fail because you won’t be able to see the role you have played in the events that would have resulted in your failure. This repetition of things while expecting different results commonly known as stupidity goes hand in hand with failure.
Albert Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level we were at when we have created them.” We all thrive to move forward but sometimes the only thing that holds us back is our beliefs over our past actions. Before you can
Someone else said, “Man cannot discover new oceans until he has courage to lose sight of the shore.” This simply means that we have to lose what we have been holding onto from our past if we are to move to our future. That means we have to take responsibility of our failed past, so that we can move past that and not continue holding on to the belief of what has put us in the uncomfortable situation we would be right now.
In Zimbabwe the concept of taking responsibility isn’t something that is encouraged because wherever you look at, there is someone with his fingers aimed at someone blaming them for all the misfortunes that this lovely country of ours has faced.
While reading the ZIMASSET document, I was surprised by the mention of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe as the major reason of the poor performance of our economy from every sectorial view. While I’m not saying they aren’t to blame (my focus isn’t on them), there was absolutely no mention of the actions of our leaders that has resulted in this economic mess.
For that reason, we can have the sanctions lifted and still struggle because we haven’t moved past the ‘the sanctions are to be blamed for everything’ mode.
The Spiderman movies always use the quote, “With great power come great responsibility.” For an individual to attain greatness, he or she will have to be very responsible for his or her actions.
Look at your life and what you have or don’t have now. Are you responsible for your own actions? Who do you blame for all the opportunities you missed in life? I’m not saying that blame yourself for every misfortune. Sometimes bad things happen and you may not have control over them, but it’s never a bad thing to look yourself in the mirror and evaluate the roe you would have played and analyze if there were anything you could have done differently to yield better and different results. Chances are, there are many ways you could have changed the course of events.
Nothing will come easy. Take the first step today and accept responsibility. Success in the modern day era will only come to those who are able to learn, unlearn and relearn. And the key in all that, is in taking responsibility. Go ahead and live life responsibly.
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