Luck Public High School

Luck, Wisconsin

Teacher: Barbara Petersen

 

 

Personal Responsibility

By Ethan Bergstrom

 

Personal responsibility is the key to any success.  In order for anything to improve, people must not only take on the responsibility, they must also prove they are responsible.  Everyone is responsible for their lives and the choices they  make.  The quality of one’s life is basically left up to themselves to achieve their own goals and to find their own success. In our communities, each individual has a considerably large role and impact upon others.  Each member of a community fills a role in the life of another community member, whether he or she is a neighbor, a friend, owner of the friendly local grocery store, or even a teacher at the local school.  Everyone compares and contrasts his or her own lives to that of others, often positively or even negatively.  That is how people are influenced into changing their own lifestyles.

           

The children in a community are always looking up to those who are respected and to them are “cool.”  A role model to a child is as important to them, as an object to a sculptor.  The children’s role models are someone they model their lives around, carefully imitating each distinctive trait.  In relation, every member of a community should keep in mind that each thing they do could make an impact on a child.  “Children are not rugged individualists.  They depend on the adults they know and on thousands more who make decisions every day that effect their well being.”.

           

Character is an important aspect to anyone on this earth.  It is important that individuals are allowed to be who they want to be and to discover who they are.  Personal values are discovered and tried throughout the many journeys in life.  These morals are the basis upon which people act.  There are different ways of looking at every situation, and each opinion and response is based upon each person’s values and standards.

 

Decisions are a crucial part of life.  Decisions are the only real opportunity where individuals are given the chance to make the choices.  Most problems in life are brought on by other’s decisions and by life itself.  It all has to be dealt with; avoiding them is not the correct way around them.  “Life is filled with opportunities to choose between making a big deal out of something or simply letting go, realizing it doesn’t really matter.  If you choose your battles wisely, you’ll be far more effective in winning those that are truly important.".

           

Opportunities in life are plentiful.  Some opportunities seem small until it’s to late. Others often seem so important, but the next day it perhaps wasn’t as important as we thought.  In the community, opportunities are around every corner.  In school alone, there are opportunities for sports, friendships, responsibility, and leadership.  That is not even mentioning the opportunity of being able to be educated.  Education is the key to the future.  Without today’s youth prepared for tomorrow’s hardships, the community will suffer through the punishments of irresponsible and overwhelmed citizens.  Children often see their education as a burden and are overwhelmed with the pressures to become an adult.  Each community member must make education seem as if it is positive, uplifting, and rewarding.  We need to have the children’s role models show that school was important to them.  We can’t have educators who are unsatisfied with their jobs and working for only their paychecks.  They have to be positive, encouraging, helpful, understanding, respectable, and show good leadership qualities.  Otherwise, it could possibly bring down the children’s morale and desire for learning.  It causes the children to receive the overall opinion that school is not a desirable place to be.

           

In today’s society, leaders are the true backbone of America.  All of the great historical accomplishments were not made by followers.  They were accomplished by those who were willing to stand up and take on life’s every challenge, never letting failure hold them back.  Accepting the risk of leadership is perhaps the key personal responsibility of every human.  We must be willing to take on any challenge, stand up for our beliefs, and do whatever we deem best.  I think, more often than not, the main draw back in life is being lazy; it is like a disease.  People become angry with themselves for not being productive, yet we still don't seem to get moving in the right direction.  “We come up with elaborate and sophisticated rationales to justify our actions, and end up spending most of our time and energy doing things that are not truly important.  We argue for our limitations, and they become our limitations”(Carlson 246).  After all, I feel the only true regrets in life are the personal goals we never achieved.

           

I think the role of personal responsibility in improving the quality of life in ourcommunities was best summed up by the great writer, Herman Melville.  “We cannot live for ourselves alone.  Our lives are connected by thousands of invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”

 

Quote Page

 

“Life is filled with opportunities to choose between making a big deal out of something or simply letting go, realizing it doesn’t really matter.  If you choose your battles wisely, you’ll be far more effective in winning those that are truly important”.

           

“We come up with elaborate and sophisticated rationales to justify our actions, and end up spending most of our time and energy doing things that are not truly important.  We argue for our limitations, and they become our limitations. Carlson, Ph.D., Richard.  Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff... and it’s all small stuff.  New York: Hyperion, 1997.

 

 “Children are not rugged individualists.  They depend on the adults they know and on thousands more who make decisions every day that effect their well being.". Clinton, Hillary Rodham.  It Takes A Village.  New York:  Touchstone Books, 1996.

 

 

“We cannot live for ourselves alone.  Our lives are connected by thousands of invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers,our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”-Herman Melville