Q: I have been dating a young lady for whom I am becoming attached.
However, she has also told me that she is not interested in relationships with someone who is as immature as I am.
People love me. I am the life of the party and if I had to be honest about it I really love being the joker, making people laugh and just generally enjoying myself. However, my lady friend has a point.
I think that I would like to settle a bit and be more responsible. I think that if I was a more responsible person my life might be less chaotic and perhaps even more successful.
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A: I’m wondering if you might not be more responsible than you give yourself credit. We tend to think of responsible people as those who run through life with a most serious gait, otherwise sitting in the corner in a social gathering and not having much fun.
That is not necessarily true. Responsible people have fun too. They may not be the life of the party but they can laugh and giggle with the best of them.
What they understand more so than most people is that being responsible is not the same as being serious. Being responsible is being responsible, being serious is being serious and not always shall the train meet.
I think that I can help you by just rattling off a list of the characteristics of responsible people that I put together after reading a number of articles about them.
Number one on the list of responsibility is accountability. Responsible people try to be responsible for their life circumstances. They do not blame others, they don’t run and hide when things are not working out in their favour and when they find themselves caught in the turmoil of a turbulent world they do what they can to make it better. Maybe they cannot fix everything but doing what they can is like taking a short cut to self-esteem. It feels good.
Number two on the list is punctuality and everything that goes with it. Responsible people try to be on time, they plan their days, organize their responsibilities and show up when promised. If they can’t, responsible people serve notice that they might not make the schedule.
Number three is that responsible people keep their emotions in check. They do not fly off in irrational rages, over-react when problems surface, or hide when and if they are overwhelmed. They understand that their best bet for success is their intellectual ability and the more that they can think things through, rather than feel things through, the more they are likely to successfully resolve those unpredictable life circumstances.
Finally, responsible people admit to their errors. All of us make mistakes. For responsible people a mistake is an opportunity to learn. For everyone else, a mistake is an embarrassment. If you are not at the moment owning up to whatever it is that you have sent amiss, change that. Admit what you have done is wrong. Once you start doing it you will find out that the moment of honesty is easy. It gets easier the more that you do it.
What makes the whole thing about being responsible great is that it takes you away from criticizing other people, from feeling that guilt that goes with deprecation of another person. You can love yourself for who you are, you can do the same for everyone else, and then you really will sleep well at night and you will enjoy, not gorge, your evening dinner.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
