The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.

The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, “I’ve got responsibilities.

The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities."

You refuse to own yourself, you permit others to do it for you

If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

Transfer caution to the will and the functions of the will, and the mere wish will bring with it the power of avoidance. But if we direct it at what is outside us and is none of our responsibility, wanting instead to avoid what’s in the control of others, we are necessarily going to meet with fear, upset and confusion.

The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, 'I've got
responsibilities.

When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be.

We have an obligation to one another, responsibilities and trusts. That does not mean we must be pigeons, that we must be exploited. But it does mean that we should look out for one another when and as much as we can; and that we have a personal responsibility for our behavior; and that our behavior has consequences of a very real and profound nature. We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, "You can't change the world." But the world is changing every day. Only question is … who's doing it? You or somebody else?

If we abdicate responsibility for our choices, we may become angry, sometimes full of rage at others for running our lives, for telling us what to do. We need to take responsibility. We need to trust ourselves.

You want your decisions taken away from you so you won’t be responsible for your own actions?

We tend to disempower ourselves. We tend to believe that we don’t matter. And in the act of taking that idea to ourselves we give everything away to somebody else, to something else.

When someone is in some kind of social or psychological difficulty, and someone has been irresponsible in some way, we wonder what caused the problem: “Why are they like that?” And instead of attributing the problem to the person, our psychologists tend to refer it back to other things and other people: It was because of their environment, or because of family conditioning, or because of their father and mother. But there is no end to that, because you can take the blame straight back to Adam and Eve! And responsibility is evaded, because it was limited in the first place.

If we weren’t trying to control whether a person liked us or his or her reaction to us, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control the course of a relationship, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control another person’s behavior, how would we think, feel, speak, and behave differently than we do now? What haven’t we been letting ourselves do while hoping that self-denial would influence a particular situation or person? Are there some things we’ve been doing that we’d stop? How would we treat ourselves differently? Would we let ourselves enjoy life more and feel better right now? Would we stop feeling so bad? Would we treat ourselves better? If we weren’t trying to control, what would we do differently? Make a list, then do it.