What It’s Like to Be Devoid of Personal Responsibility?
I have a few ideas …
President Obama Says Women Should Rule the World — and I Agree — Joe Duncan
I believe women do have the wherewithal to rule the world. The current penchant of narcissistic politicians to put their own needs above those of their countrymen certainly won’t give us the opportunity. We have to take it. However, I suspect many of us are still trying to figure out who we are, who we want to be, and do we really need men when we are finding ourselves in our fifties?
Is the male narcissist’s driving force merely to inflict his will on as many people as possible? What would empath woman do differently?
Denial
I lied to colleagues about a relationship I was having with a peer. He didn’t want anyone to know. They knew I was lying and teased me, but I held my ground. After all, it was none of their business. They acted as if it was, though. I don’t think I was being responsible by keeping my private life private, I was bowing to my boyfriend’s wishes. Being responsible for him, not me. Not devoid at this point.
Depression
Keeping that secret, on top of shutting down the best job I’d ever had — one of autonomy, challenge, and satisfaction — instead of grieving for my beloved stepmother, brought on six months of depression and a month of recovery as an outpatient at the Chelmsford Priory in Essex, England.
When I was paid to leave the company and the colleagues behind, I made a full recovery.
Not responsible
A few years later, however, after the break up of the relationship with the boyfriend of six years, I found myself in a state of not taking responsibility for any of my actions, other than working to survive. At that point, I was self-employed, not a mid-level manager on £40k per annum with private health insurance. So I taught English to Czech business people, running around Prague to their offices.
Comfort eating
I ate cakes. I ate anything I damn well pleased and drank a bottle of red wine every Friday. Why not? I didn’t have a man, I didn’t need to take care of my figure. Maybe this approach was never based on a healthy responsibility for my body but to please.
Winging it
I got away with knowing nothing about grammar. I was a native speaker of English, of course, I was correct.
At occasional female teachers’ get-togethers, we all brought something delicious to eat (I bought something because any desire I had to cook or bake had long since bowed out). At these gatherings, I allowed my elderly mentor to ridicule me with her put-downs. Through respect for her age, I would walk away to cry in the bathroom. I didn’t comprehend what I’d done to deserve her barbs.
On reflection
Something was eating away at this elderly woman and it was more than cancer that killed her. I was too selfish to be kind to her, to ask her what was wrong. Or, was I simply avoiding conflict?
Avoiding conflict
Accusation or ridicule makes me cringe and squirm. I flush with displeasure and discomfort. What if they’re correct? I back off from arguments. I’ll let a comment go because I want to check my facts. I will go back to the friend at a later date with evidence that I was either right or wrong. I don’t feel shame if I am wrong then.
Feeling diminished
I’m sure I’m not the only person who doesn’t know everything instantly! Is that called a relaxed attitude, and not always having to be right which could be to the detriment of a friendship? Am I overthinking it, because I feel small when someone disagrees with me? Allowing someone to make me feel diminished is a state of mind I shouldn’t even visit.
Confidence
I have a lot to learn. I’m in my fifties but the learning never ends. I have learnt that plenty of intelligent, confident people will insist that they are right. They won’t check their facts and will easily forget about what they’ve just disagreed on with me. Fortunately, I now have friends who value my experience and fact-checking.
But what’s all that go to do with our current masculine conception of freedom being totally devoid of responsibility?
Am I so arrogant to think that everything I say is right? You won’t be surprised when I say I don’t think so. I was once very good at creatively solving problems, speaking to all the key people, those with the problem, those with the solution, and those that could implement it.
At work I was so responsible, so on the ball, so passionate. I not only spoke up, but I spoke my mind and fought my case. I knew what I was talking about. I had been with the company’s internet products from the start. I knew who to go to to get things done, boy, I could make things happen! I could consider the impact on each individual party, and find a solution that was best for all. I was promoted every two years for ten years. I was on fire!
Depression again
There was a blip. I surpassed the level my dad had reached and I woke up one morning thinking: I’ve done it all. I married, I had a son. I left my husband and gave up my son. I worked and played hard. I fell into a relationship with a man who made me feel every emotion on the scale, and we had many hedonistic evenings and holidays.
I later realised I gave everything to this man who treated me as someone that was only there for him. That same day or perhaps weeks or months later, I announced I was going to the shop. He asked me to pick up some bacon. I cried. Why was I crying? An appointment with the doctor and some telling answers to her questions later, she determined I was depressed and signed me off work.
Recovery
Six months of anti-depressants later, I was fit for work and returned raring to go. I got promoted a couple more times.
Betrayal
A few years later, the boyfriend got drunk in the living room and screwed my friend. I hated her, but still loved him. We limped on for a couple of years. I supported him financially while he tried to make it big in Germany, then Spain.
Death
The next year, my step-mum drank herself to death. That year was the start of a reckless six years. You know the line, don’t make any big decisions in the first year after the death of someone you love deeply, or words to that effect. I made them all.
Decisions
When I’d joined the boyfriend in Spain, for what turned out to be the last time, he’d expected me to pay for the hotel he’d booked. I paid, but it was one too many times.
At around the same time as the current relationship was about to become previous, I was being pursued by a fellow manager at work who also lived in the same town as me. I finally said yes, after I sent the boyfriend in Spain a breakup e-mail
In between yet more hedonistic outings to pubs and restaurants, which I wasn’t paying for this time around, the new boyfriend and I went on a spending spree.
Instead of paying off my mortgage in the UK, I went and bought two properties abroad. I used inheritance money, the tax-free lump sum from my redundancy payment.
All of the foreign property I bought ended in financial disaster. I reckon you could say this was my crisis mode.
Betrayal again
The relationship ended six weeks after we moved to the island we were going to retire on. He couldn’t admit he’d fallen for a local woman, I had seen the evidence with my own eyes and lost all ability to communicate with him. Meanwhile, I found it easier to allow him to screw me, twice a day, right up to my final flight out of that hell.
Not caring
After a brief spell with my birth mum following her hip operation, I got a job as a live-in carer. Seven weeks later I knew I was incapable of caring at that time.
I moved to Prague where I shunned all financial, personal, and most social responsibility, other than that which I had to have to survive.
My lack of personal responsibility due, in the main, to not being able to deal with the life choices I’d made was a speck of dust, compared to what else is going on in the world.
In fact, in the process of writing about this, I discovered the article below.
Again, what’s all that go to do with our current masculine conception of freedom being totally devoid of responsibility?
It is evident that a growing register of political and religious leaders who are deaf, numb, and blind to the real social justice needs of their countries and all the people within — not just the narcissistic rich or the pious — do not have the emotional wherewithal to empathise. In my opinion, this is the true meaning of being devoid of responsibility.
In terms of affective empathy, females, compared to men, show higher emotional responsivity and mirroring responses to others’ pain, as well as better emotion recognition abilities. Relative to men, females also seem to engage more emotional areas during social cognition. Females also tend to show more prosocial, altruistic behavior as well, which supports the notion that affective empathy drives prosocial behavior. On the other hand, when it comes to cognitive empathy, males seem to show more utilitarian behavior as well as greater recruitment of areas involved in cognitive control and cognition. — Excerpt from Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behaviour, by five authors whose names can be found here.
To return to the prompt, at the top of the page, from Joe Duncan’s article based on President Obama’s quote:
“Women Should Rule the World.”
Women should indeed rule the world.
But we need to take advantage of our rage and our ability to reflect and learn from not only our lives but the lives of other humanitarians like President Obama, in order to support and nurture both our personal worlds and the world we live in.
We’d make a much better job of it.
