Nothing could be further from the truth!

Every thought thought, every word spoken, every action taken sends energy rippling through our consciousnesses. In our minds this energy sounds like our self talk, that constant internal dialog we have with ourselves all day, everyday, in our bodies the energy takes the form of neuropeptides, the amino acids that we respond to at the cellular level creating our emotional and ultimately our physical states of being and our actions speak very clearly for our spirit consciousness.

Everything we feel, think, say and do effects us personally, which in turn influences our homes, families, friends and communities, which then goes on to impact ever more comprehensive environments to the grandest of scales. This is what the Buddhist refers to as interdependence.

It is also useful to understand that these changes particularly in regards to the self are often immediate. This is where Alan Watts suggests that the major western spiritual philosophies have misconstrued the concept of Karma. In the west Karma has come to be associated with some sort of spiritual savings account. Do “good” now and good will come to you in the future; do “bad” now and at some point in the future bad will befall you. Where as in the major eastern philosophies Karma is instantaneous; when you are doing “good” you are said to have good Karma, when you are doing “bad” you are said to have bad Karma.

If that makes sense to you, if you can feel that then rather than ask ourselves do I make a difference? We might better ask ourselves what kind of difference do I want to make. What kind of world do I want to be a part of creating?

The self empowering yin to the disempowering yang of projection, blame and denial is something I refer to as “Radical Responsibility”. Radical responsibility suggests that we are responsible not for our actions, but also for the way that we think and the way that we feel.

The first step in the process is to become responsible for our actions. While it’s true that we are not always responsible for what happens to us radical responsibility aligns itself with Victor Frankl’s assertion that we are always responsible for our response to what happens to us and our true autonomy lies in our ability to say no. No I will not support an illegal, immoral war, I will not sell out the future of humanity for short sighted gains in the present, no I will not demean or devalue our brothers and sisters. Each and every one of us has the ability to say no and that is where our true freedom lies.

The next step in the process is to become responsible for how we think. Regardless of how we were raised, how we think today is our responsibility. I was raised at one point to believe that Santa Claus was real; if I still believe in Santa Claus that’s not my parents responsibility, that’s mine! I feel very fortunate that I was raised as Martin Luther King suggested to judge a person by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, but had I been raised to be a racist, I can not fault my parents for that anymore. I am an adult; I am responsible for how I think and if the ways that I think are not leading me towards the actions that I desire then I am responsible for changing the way that I think.

Finally we take responsibly for how we feel. It is so deeply ingrained in our society that other people can make us happy or other people can make us sad, that we are not even conscious of it. Ultimately what we do when we use that kind of language is that we make other people responsible for our emotional well being. Eleanor Roosevelt alluded to this when she said no one can make us feel inferior without our permission. What radical responsibility suggests is that no can make us feel anything without our permission and since we give them the permission we can take it away.

Most of us can not even identify our feelings, let alone interpret what these feelings mean for us. In a future pod cast I will share with you a mediation technique that I call “Dialog with Feeling” that will allow you to get to the meaning of your specific feelings.

I remember very clearly 20 years ago when I was first exposed to this information, I was reluctant, I was very comfortable being able to blame other people for what was going on in my life, but the more I stated to work with it I the more empowered I felt. My successes were mine, my mistakes were mine too, but I learned from them and mistakes are only mistakes when you don’t learn from them. The bonus to all of this was that I began to realize that since I am solely responsible for my thoughts, my actions and my feelings I wasn’t responsible for anybody else’s thoughts, feelings and actions and nobody could make me; nobody could manipulate me by suggesting that I was and more to the point I wasn’t able to manipulate myself by believing that I was responsible for other peoples thoughts, feelings and actions. Radical responsibility puts us back in control of how we live our lives.

In previous pod casts I have detailed processes for engineering healthy, positive behaviors and mental attitudes. I invite you to revisit those pod casts and if you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me via the comments button on the www.optimismisaskill.com web page.

I would like to leave you with one of my favorite anecdotes. This story relates to how even seemingly insignificant acts of an individual contribute to the greater good.

When President Kennedy gave the mandate to NASA to put a man on the moon, that objective initiated the expenditure of thousands of employees, millions of dollars and billions of man hours. One day a custodian at NASA was asked to describe his job, his response, putting a man on the moon.

There is little doubt in my mind that world peace can become a reality when each person finds peace within their own heart. I believe that the most important job facing humanity and the most subversive thing that any single person can do is to take responsibility for their own lives and to make it their objective to become as peaceful and compassionate as they possibly can.

And so just as that janitor whose job sweeping the floors contributed to putting a man on the moon our feelings, thoughts and actions contribute to the state of the world as it is.

The construction of a world with peace and prosperity for all of its inhabitants is well under way; I encourage you not to take your contributions lightly.