Valley Springs High School

Valley Springs, Arkansas
Teacher: Lavina Grandon

 

 

The Role of Personal Responsibility in Improving

Quality of Life in Communities Today

By Bobbie Jo Vansandt

 

In what ways can individuals use personal responsibilities to improve life in communities today?  Each individual has responsibilities to his or her family, community, and career.  Each person in the community needs to represent the goodness that will develop in the community after each individual accepts his or her role.

  First, every individual has personal responsibilities to his or her family.  For example, a mother and father have the responsibility of taking care of their child. Pat Wingert believes that in communities today “ it’s easier for either spouse to walk away if they’re unhappy.”  Each spouse has the responsibility to make the relationship last.  Today more and more couples are moving in together, before they are married, and having children out of wedlock.  According to Wingert this “ means about three quarters of all the children born to cohabiting couples will see their parents split up.”  Some experts worry mainly about the “implication for children of increasingly unstable family relationships.”

Another example of accepting family responsibilities is being there for the children.  Many children “eat breakfast alone or with siblings they are responsible for.”  Some children don’t have to worry about things like getting made fun of, being left out, or what they are going to eat.  Less fortunate children, whose parents don’t really care about them, have to worry about this every day and they shouldn’t, because this is a lack of personal responsibility on their family’s part. 

  Also, each child has personal responsibilities to his or her parents and elders. Some children disrespect their parents and elders.  Certain steps can be taken to solve this problem.  Each child should obey his or her parents and elders and not talk back to them.  Every time a child is disrespectful he should be punished, in one form or another.  A child who disrespects other people, especially his or her parents, is not accepting his or her personal responsibilities in the family as a child. This responsibility will not improve until the child accepts his or her role in the family.

Second, every individual has personal responsibilities to his or her community.  Each individual needs to assume responsibility for himself in the community.  In order to build a strong, healthy community each individual needs to do his or her part in improving the things that are in the community.  According to Patricia Hersch, many members of the community do not interact with each other and this will weaken the communities.  In order to improve the things that make up the community each individual needs to take a role in this effort.  For example, one or two families could set up a station where people could come and sign up to do community service work.  These individuals would do work together on projects around the community to make it more appealing.  Other families could recapture the history behind the community to make it more interesting to learn about.  When each individual accepts his or her role in the community, things start to strengthen in the community and due to the beauty that this will create, the community will become a lot wealthier.  More people will start to have a sense of belonging when they put forth the effort to interact with others in the community.

Also, there are different races combined in communities today and many individuals judge others that are of a different race by the color of their skin. Thus, individuals not accepting their role weaken communities. It does not matter what the color of another person’s skin is; what counts is what he is like on the inside. According to Richard Eckersley, by the year 2050, the American population will be one-quarter black, Asian or Native American and one-quarter will be Hispanic. What will the individuals do if this statement really is true? Each individual will have to accept these different races for who they are on the inside, or the communities in the U.S. will weaken and never regain the stability that every member has worked on.

Third, each individual has personal responsibilities to his or her career.  Every individual that has a career should put forth an effort to be on time and do his or her best while at work.  For example, if an individual shows up late, then it will put his or her co-workers in a bind.  It may also make the lunch schedules run late, and it may upset the boss to the extent that he terminates that individual’s spot in the company. S. Truett Cathy, owner of Chic-fil-A, implied that it was hard to replace a good employee with a new one.  He said that he was distressed due to others that didn’t take as much care in the preparation as the old employee did.

 Finally, each individual needs to fulfill his responsibility to his or her career, because there may not be very many opportunities for a new job in the future.  Many individuals believe that just because they have been with a company for a long time, the employer will not terminate them.  This is untrue, because each company needs dependable employees to work for them.  Each individual needs to accept his or her responsibility in the career, not only for the company, but also for himself. 

There are many possibilities that can be useful in improving the communities today.  Each individual needs to take a role and accept it in order to make a better life in communities for the future.  Each individual needs to live life for what it is worth and take a part in improving it.        

  

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References

Barry, J.  (1998).  Doing good by eating chicken.  Philanthropy, 3 (96), 5.

Eckersly, R.  (1998).  Tomorrow’s child.  Newsweek, 133 (19), 54-56.

Hersh, P.  (1998).  A tribe apart.  New York:  Balantine Publishing Group.

Wingert, P.  (1998).  I do, I do-maybe.  Newsweek, 133 (19), 58.

Answers To Questions For Required Reading

 

Q1-How does society invest in marriage in the USA and in Manus?

A1-The USA doesn’t really have a concern about the people and the status of their relationship and in Manus it is considered a horrible thing if people are divorced.

 

Q2-Interview 10 married people.  (No names.) State the length and number of each one’s marriages and a line or two of advice from each on how to maintain a long, happy relationship.

A2-Marriage

#1-This couple has been together for 25 years.  This is the first marriage for both of them.  They say in order to have a long, happy relationship each person has to have respect for the other, and don’t let minor problems get in the way.

 

#2-This couple has been together for 5 years.  The woman has been married twice and the man once.  The advice is to love and care for one another and show concern.

 

 #3-This couple has been together for 11 years.  They have only been married this one time.  The advice is to wait to have children until you are sure that both of you can handle it.

#4-This couple has been together for 15 years.  This is the second marriage for the both of them.  The advice is to respect and honor on another and consider each others feelings.

 

#5-This couple has been together for 20 years.  They were both married twice.  The advice is that you have got to learn to give and take.

 

#6-This couple has been together for 18 years.  This is the first marriage for both of them.  The advice is don’t let minor things or personal problems interfere with the relationship.

 

#7-This couple has been together for 14 years.  This is the wife’s 2^nd and the Husband’s 3^rd marriage.  The advice is follow your instincts and don’t worry about what others think.

 

#8-This couple has been together for 12 going on 13 years.  This is the first marriage for both of them.  The advice is to get along not matter what situation comes up.

 

#9-This couple has been together for 3 years.  This is the first marriage for both of them.  The advice is to learn to make sacrifices in order to help one another.

 

#10-This couple has been together for 11 years.  This is the husband’s second and the wife’s first marriage. The advice is to listen and care for one another.

 

Q3-According to Richard Eckersley, what should our collective goal be?

A3-According to Richard Eckersley your collective goal should be to dematerialize society with out reducing the quality of life.

 

Q4-Write a worthy goal for your local community.

A4-The goal of my community should be to respect what is giver to us and not want for anything else and we should try to help everyone not just the well liked families.

 

Q5-Comment on the excerpts from “Tomorrow’s Child.”

A5-I agree that more parents should be there for their children and not always give them material things.  I don’t really agree with the statistics about the races in the U.S. society, because I don’t feel that the comparisons of races are valid.

 

Q6-How does the fact the USA is a democracy make lawyers particularly helpful, according to Kathleen Sullivan? How does our diversity, wealth and size make lawyers particularly helpful?

A6-The fact that the U.S. is a democracy makes lawyers particularly helpful in that they help protect individuals from tyranny of the majority.  Diversity helps in that it considers the respect for religion, race, national origin, and with respect of women. Wealth helps because the U.S. is a wealthy country through society and historical standards and the law can help solve the problems of our environment.  The size of the U.S. is helpful in that it is a vast, expansive territory where individual can have the choice to work closely together or further apart.

 

Q7-Ms. Sullivan claims bad practices are changed either by regulations or punitive damages.  Which do you prefer and why? Can you think of an alternative?

A7-I prefer to use punitive damages because each person or organization should have to admit to their mistakes and not just make a “deal” with the plantiff but pay for what has happened in a fair way.

 

Q8-Breifly describe three ways society would benefit from the coming retirement of baby boomers, according to the required reading.

A8-1.) Will provide jobs for the teenage entrepreneurs

2.) Some of the retired will start their own business and give advice to the young soon to be baby boomers.

       3.) Maybe they will provide assistance for the elderly within the home.

 

Q9-Evaluate the likelihood of President Clinton’s anti-poverty program making a real impact. Give at least three reason to back your conclusion.

A9-The likelihood of President Clinton’s anti-poverty program making a real impact is very slim.  One reason is because it has been found that 35% of former welfare recipients can’t perform simple tasks, such as finding a place on a street map.  The second reason is that 41% couldn’t use a calculator to work out a 10% discount.  The third reason is that the poor unemployed may be willing to work but man not be useful.

 

Q10-Name three things Truett Cathy and Tom Lewis have in common.

A10-One thing that they have in common is that they both have huge responsibilities to their companies.  Another thing is that they both have interest in the education of our future leaders. And the last thing is that they both volunteer to teach children in one way or another.