Why it is the responsibility of all of us to bear our respective burdens
As a kid I can remember taking my experience and applying it to the adults around me. I thought most adults were boring because they did not spend their time as I did exploring the woods, hanging out with friends or playing sports all day. In fact now that I think about it this must be why we in society put so much value in professional sports. If you really think about it, professional athletes are the kids that never gave up the dream, they managed to keep playing a childrens game long after the rest of us quit. As you mature, you (should) take on more and more responsibilities and you (should) begin to make the shift of relating more to your exhausted parents than the kids that spend all day running around the neighborhood.
This shift is difficult to see until you are out of school because for your first eighteen or so years you are locked into a room with your peers. You might be able to relate to kids within a year plus or minus your own age, but if you go much past that kids are either entirely too young or they appear as out right adults in your eyes. After all, a two year difference in Elementary school seems like a life-time and if you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel in your own grade then how can you be expected to relate to someone who is two years apart, be that behind or ahead of you on the educational trail. While in the grand scheme of things this age difference is a non-factor, in the moment it is your entire world.
It is not until you remove yourself from the public school system that you learn how to socialize outside of your immediate age group. For most of us this occurs with our first job. Typically it is in this environment that people begin to realize that just because someone is older than them does not automatically mean that they are more mature. For the purpose of this post I am going to play the arm chair psychologist and give my own interpretation of maturity. For me maturity is the measure of how well you manage your personal responsibilities. Notice that my definition is indiscriminate of age, wealth, or any other non-sensical category one might think up to basterdize my definition.
It is a simple part/whole relation:
As the number of ones responsibilities increases, so does the expectation that they will be able to manage all of these responsibilities. If you begin to slack on some of your responsibilities, then by this definition you are not living up to your true maturity level and are therefore quantifiably less mature than you otherwise should be.
Take for example two individuals that at a glance appear to be operating on a similar plane of existence. They both work dead end jobs and waste away their free time and weekends entertaining themselves to death playing video games and watching Netflix. However, taking a closer look we observe that one of these individuals is in their twenties with hardly any true personal responsibilities while the other is in their forties and has all but abandoned his wife and three kids in his selfish pursuit of frivilous activities. While both individuals are actively taking responsibility for similar amounts, clearly the forty something individual is over all far less mature. This is because he has a much greater true number of personal responsibilities that he is shirking.
As you age you tend to acquire more and more personal responsibilities. Using myself as an example when I was in college I felt as though I had a ton of responsibilities but really all I was responsible for was eating and proper hygeine, that and making sure I did not fail out of school of course. When I met Cassandra my responsibilities increased so much as I needed to be a good boyfriend to her. Things did not really change until I graduated and took a job outside of school. That first job in Oklahoma was where I first started to gleam how much work it would take to function as a mature adult. Fortunately for me I had few distractions to keep me from shirking my responsibilities as I lived in the middle of nowhere on an oil rig.
After that year passed Cassandra moved on to dental school and I joined her for her first year. I still had few responsibilities, but it seemed like a lot because we moved in together and were learning how to share a space and the responsibility necessary to maintain that space. Also, I was now working a job that required me to work odd hours so I was not always able to partake in the weekend dental school festivities. After that first year together I decided to hit the reset button on my career and moved back north to get my engineering degree. To save money I sold my pickup truck and bought a cheap economy car and moved back in with my parents. For three years I worked during the summer in Louisville to be with Cassandra and to save up enough money to support myself through the rest of the year when I would go back north for school.
My round two undergraduate education was drastically different from my first. This was because I had a greater number of personal responsibilities. Here is a short list to illustrate:
- I could not mess up a single class so that I could graduate in three years with Cassandra
- I needed to maintain a high GPA
- I was trying to minimize the student loans I took out by working through the summer
- I commuted an hour to and from school each day with a two hour commute each weekend to be with Cassandra
- I worked to strategically set up myself for success to land a good job out of school where we could both work
This second round of education was very eye opening. The students in engineering school were more mature and had a much greater number of responsibilities. Most students worked part time jobs alongside their busy class schedules and a few even worked full time jobs pulling long night shifts to support their families or avoid student loan debt.
Fastforward to today and my number of responsibilities has increased substantially. Cassandra and I are now married, work our respective full time jobs, have a home, and two dogs to take care of, and to top it all off we are expecting a little girl at the end of this year. From where things stand I feel like I have reached my capacity. If I am being honest with myself I will have to admit that my maturity is slacking relative to my recent additional responsibilities. It may seem overwhelming now, but I know I am only scratching the surface in terms of the responsibilities I hope to one day bare. I do not have to look any further than my own dad for a suitable role model.
Here is a list of just some of my dads responsibilities:
- Continues to provide for a family of five after thirty plus years
- Always willing to drop anything to help one of us three kids
- Maintains a much larger home and hardly ever ousources work or chores around the house
- Acts as the family mechanic to ensure we all avoid costly car payments
- Takes care of Mom in her retirement
- Takes care of Grandma Sharon and helps to oversee many of her affairs
- Has stayed near his own mom and step dad, Art and has helped them over the years when necessary
- Has managed to keep his relationship with all of his siblings friendly and made it a priority to meet regularly despite being spread out across the country
- Manages to keep the lights on at more than one shop around town
- Makes sure all of his toys with motors are running and well maintained
- Actually repairs half of the junk in Indy
- Has maintained life long friendships and has never missed an opportunity to host guests for the Indianapolis 500 every Memorial day weekend
I am not shy about the admiration I hold for my dad. The man has flaws of course but compared to most he is a perfect boyscout (Eagle Scout actually). I have never heard him curse and the first alcoholic beverage I ever saw him drink was at my own wedding. He has taken on a herculean level of responsibility during his lifetime and done so with a level of maturity that I only know is possible because I have personally witnessed it.
Through his example I have learned that if you can raise your level of self discipline proportionally to match your true personal responsibilities then you can live your life with a level of maturity that will both inspire and bring up the world around you. Hollyweird and our greater Pop Culture does a great disservice to the masses when they show the lone actor saving the day. This false narrative breeds complacency. The truth of the matter is that it is on all of us to take personal responsibility for what we have signed up for in this life and to do so with a level of maturity that inspires others to do their part. To do anything else is reckless, endangers the future of the things we care most about, and leaves the world, the world you can actually effect worse off for it.
If you found this article interesting and would like to share a comment with me, please feel free to reach out to me directly via my personal email at (drew@drewredifer.com).
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