Being responsible is about making good choices instead of doing something stupid and regretting it for the rest of your life. We all love the idea of a better world, city, or community. Maybe you’ve even been praying for God to do something, but has it ever occurred to you that God might have already done something! – creating you!
Chief Judge Alexander Saunders said in a graduation speech to a group of university students: ‘As responsibility is passed to your hands it will not do to assume that someone else will bear the major burdens, that someone else will demonstrate the key convictions, that someone else will be elected Member of Parliament, take care of the poor, visit the sick, protect civil rights, enforce the law, transmit value, and defend freedom. What you do not value will not be valued, what you do not remember will not be remembered, what you do not change will not be changed, what you do not do will not be done. You can, if you will, craft a society whose leaders are less obsessed with the need for money. It’s not a question of what to do, but simply the will to do it.’
Mohandas Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism wrote a little list which he called the 7 Deadly Social Sin
- Wealth without Work: Being rich is no excuse to be lazy
- Pleasure without Conscience: ‘It’s not hurting anyone’ is usually a lie
- Science without Humanity: we do not have the right to play God.
- Knowledge without Character: on its own knowledge is useless.
- Politics without Principle: those trusted with responsibility need total integrity
- Commerce without Morality:We need to spend money wisely
- Worship without Sacrifice:true faith is expensive
As 2016 draws to a gradual end and you begin to make the final analysis, let’s use it to do some thinking about the world we live in, and how we choose to live that life.