Commitment to Individual Responsibility

Those of us living in a democracy are able to exercise freedom of choice. Along with this freedom comes a need to be willing to make responsible choices. When we become no longer willing to accept personal responsibility for our life journey we are creating building blocks for a freedom that has no bounds. This type of freedom does not carry a concern for potential consequences for other individuals, communities, and the country as a whole.

As individuals in a society we have duties that are obvious and clear but are often taken for granted. We have a duty to be the best we can be in the role of:

• student
• family member
• resident of a community
• citizen
• member of organizations

We must recognize these to be the highest of responsibilities. We must recognize individual responsibility means we are accountable for our own actions; past, present, and future. At the same time, we must know life brings countless outside forces that limit our options for action. Life is not always fair. Life is difficult.

We will have discovered on our joyful pursuit of happiness freedom of choice is best exercised by making and maintaining a commitment to taking full personal responsibility for our own OneRoad Traveled.

Faith and Commitment

There are multiple definitions of both faith and commitment. One meaning of each follows and are the meanings intended for the discussion:

Commitment - The state of being bound emotionally and/or intellectually to a course of action or to another person or persons.

Faith - Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

Choices we make can be a single action, repeated actions leading to our behaviors, or a character trait to develop. We make choices just for today, and choices that last weeks, years, perhaps a lifetime. When we do not complete a course of action, turn an idea into reality, stay married, maintain a long-term friendship, keep a promise, or continue a healthy habit; we give reasons specific to the situation.

We humans tend toward being out of balance on this. Many of us tend toward justifying our every choice, action, and behavior. Many of us do the opposite. We tell ourselves we have been mostly wrong in our life with our actions and our relationships.

We will have discovered on our joyful pursuit of happiness, the truth is we either lost our faith or became no longer committed, or both. Sometimes it is the best path to take; sometimes it is not. We must be fine with that. Learning and growing from these experiences and building our integrity is the high road.

Bad Attitudes

We easily see bad attitudes when they are displayed in words or actions. Here are a few:

• negative
• critical
• defiant
• impatient
• uncooperative
• apathetic
• presumptive
• rebellious
• arrogant
• self-centered
• rude
• hateful
• unforgiving
• resentful
• confrontational
• hopeless

These are bad attitudes we see in others through words and action. It is more difficult to see these in ourselves, but we all have bad attitudes come into our thoughts. When we express these thoughts in words and action, we tend to deny, blame, or rationalize.

These are bad attitudes leading to a miserable pursuit of unhappiness. We will have discovered it is best to make conscious, heartfelt, and constructive choices when we experience bad attitudes.

Good Attitudes

Attitude is our inner thinking, feeling, or disposition about people, places, things, and circumstances. Attitude is one of the crucial fuels for thoughts, actions, behavior, and ultimately, character. We will have discovered having predominately bad attitudes does not lead to a joyful pursuit of happiness.

Life is very difficult. If we depend on our environment to give us good attitudes, we will not succeed. We must strive for a lifetime of hard work developing and growing good attitudes Some of the very best attitudes to pursue are:

• loving
• humble
• forgiving
• caring
• respectful
• helpful
• patient
• grateful
• responsible
• compassionate
• peacemaking

We will discover developing good attitudes is a very holistic pursuit. Sometimes, we will find we can simply change our thinking and feelings. Many, many times we will find that approach just does not work. We may need to look at ourselves and our surroundings. Our hearts may tell us to look at what we put into our bodies, our level and type of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual activity, the nature of our relationships. By staying with it, we will have discovered our ability to discover the best first, second, and next steps on our journey to good attitudes.

It takes perseverance, another great attitude that deserves our focus.

Yes Attitude - Present Moment

We will have discovered during our joyful pursuit of happiness the present moment is best lived with a yes attitude.

For those thoughts, words, and actions we enjoy, we say yes. Yes, we like all these, we’re experiencing joy here and now.

For those thoughts, words, and actions we choose, but find unpleasant, we say yes. Yes, these are unpleasant, but we have faith in discovering value through sense of accomplishment, fulfillment of obligation, and lessons learned.