weather throw them into despair, either. They’ll make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment. Their outlook is full of hope. These people are alive and truly responsible.

Awareness isn’t a passive occurrence that happens to you. Rather, it’s an active reaching out. Your responsibility in terms of awareness is to acknowledge your participation in the process.

For example, there are countless elements you can focus on at any given moment in the perceptual zone alone. Therefore, what you focus your attention on is strictly a matter of choice. That’s why no two people share an identical awareness. Your awareness is unique to you.

It’s clear that you can con

For many of us in this culture, responsibility is a tremendously loaded word. We often think of it as a demand to meet someone else’s expectations. Responsibility can also evoke visions of blame and guilt. For example, someone who is deeply disappointed in you might state, either sadly or accusingly, “This was your responsibility,” meaning “This was your fault.”

All of this negativity is frequently associated with responsibility. The word represents a heavy burden that many of us would secretly rather be rid of. Accepting responsibility in this light involves a sense of helplessness and resignation. It doesn’t permit choice.

I don’t believe that any of these views of responsibility are helpful. In the sense that I use the word, responsibility is not a moral issue coming to us from somewhere outside of ourselves. It doesn’t come for a book or a system of ethics. Nor does it come from your Mother or Father either.

Responsibility is simply the ability to respond to our own needs. When we’re responsible, we listen closely to ourselves to become aware of our needs in the present moment. Once we’re aware of these needs, we’re also willing to take the actions necessary to fulfill them. Of course, when your needs are in conflict with someone else’s, you need to negotiate and compromise. But negotiation is possible only when everyone is clear about his or her own needs. This is what I mean when I use the term responsible.

Awareness and responsibility go hand in hand. You can choose when you want to be more aware or less aware. That’s your responsibility.

There are basically two points of view on the issue of awareness and responsibility. The active one says; “I am in control of my awareness.” And the passive one says: “Awareness happens to me.” Each viewpoint leads to a different result.

Those people who believe that awareness just happens to them would say something like: “I’m not responsible for my awareness. After all, I can’t decide what goes on outside of me, like the sounds, sights and smells. I’m unable to control how they affect me or the role they play in my life.”

These people believe that their happiness depends on forces outside of themselves and feel helpless much of the time. Walking around with this passive mind-set is likely to lead to hopelessness, and even despair at times. After all, they see themselves as having very little free will.

People who accept responsibility for their awareness, on the other hand, are likely to see things very differently. First of all, the make lots of choices for themselves. They’re more active and independent. Of course, they don’t have the power to change a cloudy day into a warm, sunshiny afternoon, but they won’t let the weather throw them into despair, either. They’ll make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment. Their outlook is full of hope. These people are alive and truly responsible.

Awareness isn’t a passive occurrence that happens to you. Rather, it’s an active reaching out. Your responsibility in terms of awareness is to acknowledge your participation in the process.

For example, there are countless elements you can focus on at any given moment in the perceptual zone alone. Therefore, what you focus your attention on is strictly a matter of choice. That’s why no two people share an identical awareness. Your awareness is unique to you.

It’s clear that you can con

sponsibility are helpful. In the sense that I use the word, responsibility is not a moral issue coming to us from somewhere outside of ourselves. It doesn’t come for a book or a system of ethics. Nor does it come from your Mother or Father either.

Responsibility is simply the ability to respond to our own needs. When we’re responsible, we listen closely to ourselves to become aware of our needs in the present moment. Once we’re aware of these needs, we’re also willing to take the actions necessary to fulfill them. Of course, when your needs are in conflict with someone else’s, you need to negotiate and compromise. But negotiation is possible only when everyone is clear about his or her own needs. This is what I mean when I use the term responsible.

Awareness and responsibility go hand in hand. You can choose when you want to be more aware or less aware. That’s your responsibility.

There are basically two points of view on the issue of awareness and responsibility. The active one says; “I am in control of my awareness.” And the passive one says: “Awareness happens to me.” Each viewpoint leads to a different result.

Those people who believe that awareness just happens to them would say something like: “I’m not responsible for my awareness. After all, I can’t decide what goes on outside of me, like the sounds, sights and smells. I’m unable to control how they affect me or the role they play in my life.”

These people believe that their happiness depends on forces outside of themselves and feel helpless much of the time. Walking around with this passive mind-set is likely to lead to hopelessness, and even despair at times. After all, they see themselves as having very little free will.

People who accept responsibility for their awareness, on the other hand, are likely to see things very differently. First of all, the make lots of choices for themselves. They’re more active and independent. Of course, they don’t have the power to change a cloudy day into a warm, sunshiny afternoon, but they won’t let the weather throw them into despair, either. They’ll make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment. Their outlook is full of hope. These people are alive and truly responsible.

Awareness isn’t a passive occurrence that happens to you. Rather, it’s an active reaching out. Your responsibility in terms of awareness is to acknowledge your participation in the process.

For example, there are countless elements you can focus on at any given moment in the perceptual zone alone. Therefore, what you focus your attention on is strictly a matter of choice. That’s why no two people share an identical awareness. Your awareness is unique to you.

It’s clear that you can con

his or her own needs. This is what I mean when I use the term responsible.

Awareness and responsibility go hand in hand. You can choose when you want to be more aware or less aware. That’s your responsibility.

There are basically two points of view on the issue of awareness and responsibility. The active one says; “I am in control of my awareness.” And the passive one says: “Awareness happens to me.” Each viewpoint leads to a different result.

Those people who believe that awareness just happens to them would say something like: “I’m not responsible for my awareness. After all, I can’t decide what goes on outside of me, like the sounds, sights and smells. I’m unable to control how they affect me or the role they play in my life.”

These people believe that their happiness depends on forces outside of themselves and feel helpless much of the time. Walking around with this passive mind-set is likely to lead to hopelessness, and even despair at times. After all, they see themselves as having very little free will.

People who accept responsibility for their awareness, on the other hand, are likely to see things very differently. First of all, the make lots of choices for themselves. They’re more active and independent. Of course, they don’t have the power to change a cloudy day into a warm, sunshiny afternoon, but they won’t let the weather throw them into despair, either. They’ll make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment. Their outlook is full of hope. These people are alive and truly responsible.

Awareness isn’t a passive occurrence that happens to you. Rather, it’s an active reaching out. Your responsibility in terms of awareness is to acknowledge your participation in the process.

For example, there are countless elements you can focus on at any given moment in the perceptual zone alone. Therefore, what you focus your attention on is strictly a matter of choice. That’s why no two people share an identical awareness. Your awareness is unique to you.

It’s clear that you can con

le to control how they affect me or the role they play in my life.”

These people believe that their happiness depends on forces outside of themselves and feel helpless much of the time. Walking around with this passive mind-set is likely to lead to hopelessness, and even despair at times. After all, they see themselves as having very little free will.

People who accept responsibility for their awareness, on the other hand, are likely to see things very differently. First of all, the make lots of choices for themselves. They’re more active and independent. Of course, they don’t have the power to change a cloudy day into a warm, sunshiny afternoon, but they won’t let the weather throw them into despair, either. They’ll make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment. Their outlook is full of hope. These people are alive and truly responsible.

Awareness isn’t a passive occurrence that happens to you. Rather, it’s an active reaching out. Your responsibility in terms of awareness is to acknowledge your participation in the process.

For example, there are countless elements you can focus on at any given moment in the perceptual zone alone. Therefore, what you focus your attention on is strictly a matter of choice. That’s why no two people share an identical awareness. Your awareness is unique to you.

It’s clear that you can con

weather throw them into despair, either. They’ll make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment. Their outlook is full of hope. These people are alive and truly responsible.

Awareness isn’t a passive occurrence that happens to you. Rather, it’s an active reaching out. Your responsibility in terms of awareness is to acknowledge your participation in the process.

For example, there are countless elements you can focus on at any given moment in the perceptual zone alone. Therefore, what you focus your attention on is strictly a matter of choice. That’s why no two people share an identical awareness. Your awareness is unique to you.

It’s clear that you can control your awareness only to the extent that you accept responsibility for it. To experience this for yourself, I’d like you to try a short experiment now. Simply observe what you become aware of, and then describe out loud the awareness, beginning with the words, “Now I am responsible for it.”

How did that go for you? Did you experience change as you followed your awareness? What specifically happened, and how do you feel about it?

After following their awareness, many people feel a stronger sense of reality in the present moment. That’s because the untrained awareness usually bounces frantically from object to object. By consciously following your awareness, you can discover where you focus your attention. This knowledge allows you to assume more responsibility for you moment-to-moment experience.

A major part of responsibility and following our awareness is being aware of our own unique qualities. All of us have qualities that are easy to accept in ourselves, and all of us have aspects we’d rather be without. It’s the same for all of us. As long as we deny an aspect of our own personality, it can never come under our control. How can we control what we’re not aware of?

The more in tune you are with the whole spectrum of your qualities, the better equipped you’ll be to make use of them. You can then utilize them appropriately for your own benefit and for the benefit of others. As every carpenter knows, it never hurts to have an additional tool on your work bench. You never know when it might come in handy.

When you’re aware, you can monitor your moment-to-moment reactions to various situations. As soon as the usefulness of one of your qualities becomes obvious, it will be as if a bright light has been turned on. There it is for you at the very moment you need it. If you’re unaware of this quality, you’re unable to use it at will. Instead it will tend to slip out unintentionally and inappropriately.

People who accept responsibility for their awareness are active and independent. They make choices that lead to their growth and fulfillment and have an outlook that is full of hope. They are alive and truly responsible.

Taking responsibility for your awareness is a courageous act and when you do more options will open up to you in every area of your life. Your future is what you make is what you make of it. There are no excuses to be made only life is to be made by each moment.

Copyright©2007 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.