Aging with Grace

You always have a choice. Don’t ever believe you don’t. Whatever you do, it’s a decision and you have to accept responsibility for it. That’s when honor becomes more than empty words.

Lynn Flewelling

“It flew into my hand.”, he said. He was holding a paper with a gold star and the name Susan carefully printed across the top. A few minutes earlier, a little girl had come to me crying uncontrollably, “He took my paper and I want it back.”, she sobbed. She led me over to the boy holding the paper, with the gold star, that had magically flown into his hand. I say magically because that day on the playground there wasn’t even the slightest breeze. I decided to give him a second chance. “How did you get the paper?” I asked. Same response. He was quite sure it had flown into his hand. Realizing he would be wise to cut his loses at that point. He handed the paper back to the girl to whom it belonged and the crisis was averted.

I still think about that boy all these many years later. I hope that as he grew older he became able to accept responsibility for his actions. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “One of the most common tendencies of human nature is that of placing responsibility on some external agency for mistakes we have made. We are forever attempting to find some scapegoat on which we cast responsibility for our actions.” Actions have consequences. It’s easy to find examples of people unwilling to face the consequences for what they have done. Look at any news report . Not accepting responsibility is trending. No wonder we hesitate to put our trust in those claiming to represent us.

Public life is not the only place were accountability is important. Our personal life pays a price when we blame others rather than taking responsibility for our actions. We’ve all been there. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s how we handle them that makes all the difference.