The Power of Responsibility for Self-Improvement

The Context of Karna’s Fate

"Kill Him", Krishna commanded Arjuna impatiently. "What are you waiting for?" Karna, brother of Arjuna, the fiercest warrior in the battlefield and a son of God, was killed while he pleaded for mercy to wait until he is ready to fight back. A warrior died in the battlefield without his weapons in his hands. And when he was to be killed, he ultimately accepts his death. Why?

What Karna’s Story Teaches Us About Responsibility

Everyone, no matter how strong or small, how intelligent or imbicile, if they are not responsible of their acts will suffer. Karna is among my favorite character of Mahabharata. I take many inspiration from him. Karna grew up in the family of a charioteer and yet becomes the strongest warrior that even God himself was careful of. Had he not been responsible in his life? Imagine the amount of sacrifices, hard work and dedication he would have had to put in. But he chose his personal aims and ignored his supreme duties that someone at his power, position, and wisdom must have taken responsibilities of.

The Modern Relevance of Responsibility

In the modern world, we too indulge in several acts to find personal pleasures and reject to take up more responsibilities. While the evident repercussions of being naïve may not be Death like Karna and many others who were irresponsible of their actions, but we will suffer. And, if we choose to be immoral and indulge in acts of evilness, we will suffer more evidently. You see, many of us may get very confused by what does it mean to be responsible? Do I need to go out and and change the world? Should I stop a war or maybe fight a war for greater good? Should I end world hunger? Should I make this world safe for every woman? Well, why not? But to reach that level of supreme devotion to the ultimate righteousness you can start much much small. Maybe, Should I ensure my parents have a decent life? Maybe, your actions ensures you have a family with immense love for each other. Maybe people find you someone if they spend time with, they see themselves becoming a better person.

Any act that makes you virtuous, helps with your own wellbeing without causing harm to any other human being and which increases your social likeability can be an act of responsibility. And for people with significant power, position and wisdom like Karna, if you have been responsible of actions and built a significant life for yourself, you have harnessed the strength from within that will make you capable of sustaining through the bigger challenges for a bigger goal with larger outcomes.

Responsibility vs. Short-Term Pleasures

See, many of us are so consumed by our own lives that we just want to avoid pain and suffering in the name of finding our peace and happiness. And as we have seen and experienced this most of our lives, happiness is short lived. Why the greatest teachers, the God of your religions(and I mean whichever religion you follow) never taught us to chase happiness, to chase your peace. Peace can not chased, it can only be found. Happiness can not be the highest possible goal of life. Buddha said we are mostly happy in our lives. It is the crisis of life that makes us unhappy. So shouldn't our goal be to learn to deal with crisis. If we can learn to do this, will we not be happy all the time?

And don't get me wrong that I am against short term happiness or pursuit of it.

But be mindful, you must not ignore your basic responsibilities at the stake of finding peace. Else, this will be a short term happiness, and this will not last for long. If you ignore your basic responsibilities for any short-term happiness, then you are just a naïve and self-centered individual. And imagine yourself in a situation with a self-centered person who does not care about you, your feelings, your well-being, your growth, your peace, would you wish to be with that person. If you say yes then you could rather be alone and work on yourself than watch someone acting like a child, or maybe you can just watch a child. The fact is no one would enjoy a long-term relationship of any kind with a naïve self-centered person and then if you be that then people are going to distant themselves from you and then you will be all alone. Another reason to be more responsible than you currently are and continue to add more responsibilities as you grow stronger and better is that then you become a better person. A child with its childlike fantasies and never taking on the responsibilities of themselves, and world around them will always be a child. You will find yourself living a miserable, unimportant, stuck in your abyss, poor, boring life. You will be deprived of your dreams and a good quality of life and the moral obligation to give meaning to your existence. And trust me, in this fast-moving social media world where people have enough resources for themselves and everyone is looking for a quality of life, and many of them exist only to show everyone this quality of life, the world is coming for you. The growing fantasy of living a shiny life shown on social media is going to get you. And this will be the onset of depression. And when the devil comes for your soul and you do not have an anchor of goodness, it will rip you off right from your little world of fantasy and then nothing can save you.

The Impact of Responsibility on Well-Being

Let me give you an example and I can mostly give my examples because all the things I learn, I like to implement them on me and there is no one else I know better than myself. So here it goes: I like eating chocolate, makes me happy, I just gobbled 3 cubes of sweet chocolate and was left with the last one. I really wanted to eat the last one but then I decided to keep it aside to consume it maybe some other day. You see, I need to be responsible of my health. Another example, It is 04:57 pm IST in Bangalore, India. I love to be under the open sky at this time, and especially if it is a weekend. But my thoughts may get derailed, and I could lose my chain of thoughts if I stop writing now. Watching sunset is among the top quality of spiritual peace I receive. But I want to share my thoughts to the world. Maybe there are people like yourself and most certainly my younger self who could have done better if someone had explained me these. So here I am, finishing my first blog, if I am alive, I can watch the sunset tomorrow, or day after, or maybe some other day too. Stopping myself from eating another cube of chocolate may not have saved the world from hunger and hardship, but looking after my health increases my ability to carry my tasks, makes me more likeable, and increases my survivability. It also has implication that helps me with my social responsibilities.

It must not only be about personal responsibility. We must also not forget our social responsibility.

If you still believe that short term peace and happiness is the only way to live life, let me bring you a scenario. You want to know how being irresponsible will look like? So, let’s say you continue to live in your dream world. You are naïve and self-centered. You don't care if no one wants to be with you. So now you are all alone. You see, we are social animals. More than 90% of our lives are surrounded with people and this I am certain is true for almost 100% of the people in the world unless you are Mowgli in the jungle or Sadhguru who has attained spirituality (and just to remind you even they are socially responsible). You will find it difficult to live alone, much much difficult than your imagination can fathom. Evolution has hard wired us and we can not live that way. And most certainly you are going to be depressed. Keep worsening yourself and you will be severely depressed and yes, you will perish yourself. And a tiny portion of you, if you do attain Hedonism, well then lets wait for the world to return the favor.

So you are all alone and you are not ready to change yourself, you start despising the existence of yourself, and then you will become bitter with the world around you. And if you are bitter to everyone around you, you stop caring about others, and if you become careless, you start doing things that will hurt others, and then you become evil. And god forbid, if you become evil, you will have to suffer for your actions, especially if you have consciousness left in you and you are not a narcissist and psychotic, your evil acts will kill you, every day, every moment and you will have to almost die to come out of your acts of evil. So the idea of working on self is to be less evil and escape the evils of the world.

Practical Steps to Embrace Responsibility

Then what could be the right way to find our peace but also be responsible. Well, how about start with exclude yourself from things that stress you out emotionally and mentally. Eg.- A toxic work environment. Well, work on your resume, build skills and find a better place. A toxic relationship, and it could be romantic, family or friends.

You see, the world is filled with people and as long as we are looking, there is always a possibility we will find the right people. If you are good, you will most likely attract many good people in your life.

If you wish to know how can you work being a better version of yourself and work on the Idea of Self, you can read about it here. I have been using them, I have been recommending these to everyone I know in my life.

Remember, Any act that makes you virtuous, helps with your own wellbeing without causing harm to any other human being and which increases your social likeability can be an act of responsibility.

Do let me know which topic you would want me to cover next. All your thoughts, suggestions and feedback are welcome. And in this blog, this is what ABHIsays and hey…Keep Shining!