Liberty vs. Responsibility

In 1886, The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) was dedicated as a gift from the people of France to the People of the United States. In my mind, when we accepted the gift and honor of being people that enlighten the world because of the freedom we have attained, it is a huge responsibility to uphold our integrity and the honor of such a task. I think, like Viktor Frankl, that we should have the Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast to counter balance and remind us of what we are and who we are called to be in the world, enlightening the world when it comes to freedom and liberty.

Because if we believe we have earned the Statue of Liberty it is a responsibility to do our part to ensure our freedom the peace that takes to continue that freedom both in our country and the world.

As kids get older, they earn more ‘freedom’ and in that comes more responsibility. Right? They go together simply.

Freedom without responsibility is chaos, dangerous and immature.

But it seems to me as a people, we are less responsible for our freedoms. For example:

• The freedom to invent and create new products such plastics, but we aren’t responsible for how we will toss it away as to not harm the world with the ‘garbage’ that is created from the great invention.

• We have the freedom to reproduce and create more humans in the world, so shouldn’t we responsible for being the best parents possible and creating amazing humans as best as we can?

• We have the freedom of speech so shouldn’t we be responsible for the impact of our words? And if we ‘cause harm’ we have the sense of respsonsiblitiy to clean it up?

What is ‘freedom?’

Freedom to speak.

Freedom to wear what want.

Freedom to do what we want all ways as long as it does not hurt another human.

Freedom to live where we want.

Freedom to believe the religion of our choice.

Freedom to have children.

Freedom to learn.

Freedom to work.

Freedom. Its every where.

I could go on an on with the places we have attained so much freedom but been lax on the responsibility side of the equation.

How is it, as a people, we are less aware of our responsibilities as a human?

I remember years ago, my parents had this poem on the wall in our game room:

Children Learn What They Live

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.

If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.

If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.

If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.

If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.

If children live with security,
they learn to have faith in themselves and others.

If children live with friendliness,
they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

- Dorothy Law Nolte

I was kid, reading this, but it was simple, there are natural consequences for our behavior and how we behave as adults shapes another young life and that was a huge responsibility in my mind. And if we all truly care about our children, we would want to raise them to be responsible, loving and kind humans - that means we need to be - in every aspect of our lives.

When we do that, we think about the great freedoms we have and the impact those freedoms have on the world both positively and negatively. It’s all connected, parenting, how we work, what we do for work, how we treat our partner, how responsible we are with money, how we take care of ourselves, etc. And if that is all connected, we are all connected because of how we effect on another.

What is interesting to me is that the more we take responsibility for our own lives the happier we are and the powerful we become within our own life. And this concept seems to get lost. Responsibility is like a bad word, its something we as people strive to avoid and in doing so we actually hurt ourselves. We’ve got it backwards!

Being a human on this planet, in the United States of America is a gift in and of itself. We are born into this sense of freedom and we’ve forgotten the huge responsibility it is to be free. Let us not forget.