21

21

7/17/13

Personal responsibility is a difficult topic.  On the one hand, a person should be accountable for their choices, but on the other hand, the human mind is so malleable that it could be very challenging for a person to overcome or change a behavior pattern.  My mom for example, does not like peas.  As a child she was forced to eat peas when they were served for dinner.  If she did not eat them, which she did not, she was forced to remain at the dinner table until she either finished her peas or it was bed time.  If she remained at the table without eating the peas until bed time, she could then go to bed and not eat the peas.  This has led to her as an adult having a huge aversion to peas.  She has even admitted that she probably would like peas that weren’t canned, as that’s what she was given as a kid, but that she is unwilling to try them because of her negative association with eating the peas.  I think her stance is very understandable, as the notion of eating peas is now tied to a negative memory.  Obviously whether or not she eats peas is of no consequence to anybody but herself.  My point with that example is that she was subjected as a kid to an unfair treatment which has shaped her mind to operate differently than most other people in regards to eating peas.  I don’t think she is to blame for not wanting to eat them decades later.  If, though, her peas perspective was instead a perspective on some socially unacceptable activity, she would have to be accountable for her actions.  I do believe in personal responsibility, and I do believe in accountability, but I think that a person’s motivations can be infinitely more complex than an observer might ever imagine, which can make determining personal responsibility very challenging.