Accountability
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
Accountability means the willingness to accept responsibility for your actions. There is no isolation of consequences because whatever we do, directly or indirectly, affects those around us. American Indian, Chief Seattle said it best: “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” The ripple effect on others is simple physics with no exceptions.
How do we stand together as watchmen and protectors of the world we are responsible for? I believe we need to get better at holding each other accountable for our actions and if you call yourself my friend, I would expect the same and nothing less and would welcome and cherish the corrective words from a respected confidant because iron sharpens iron. Unless one iron is stronger than the other, the sharpened edge becomes dull and useless and the role we are to play as men becomes impotent and our growth is stifled in our attempt to “mind our own business” and “live and let live”. Those are the thoughts that differentiate a man from a boy.
Is it easy to find the right words and the right time to hold someone accountable? No, but fortunately the formality of timing and wording isn’t a necessary requirement for accountability. One of my favorite scenes from The Godfather is when Johnny Fontane goes to Don Corleone because a Hollywood director won’t give him a part in a movie, saying tearfully “Ohhh Godfather...I don’t know what to do...I don’t know what to do.” Don Corleone jumps out from his chair, grabs Johnny by both his arms, slaps him and yells “You can act like a man! What’s the matter with you!?” Sometimes I wish I could’ve had more Godfather like responses from other men when I wasted time on my own pity parties while licking my wounds instead of being admonished for not reviving the strength and character of my inner warrior.
What happens when we don’t hold ourselves or each other accountable? Then we set our hopes and dreams to be honorable men on pure luck. Luck to open doors for success, luck to bring the right people into your life, luck that brings about the admiration and respect you are pursuing. Luck is only the result of cause and effect and the child of diligence.
James Allen, a British author (1879-1912) says this of men: "They themselves are makers of themselves by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness. Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts.”
If you believe you have already passed your potential, and the poor excuse of you are who you are, let me remind you, no, strike that, let me admonish you, you are what you have limited yourself to be. The overwhelming majority of men who have become successful have become so because of work they found profoundly absorbing and holding themselves accountable to a dedication they found in an arena they thoroughly enjoyed. Pursue your passion, whether it be prestigious or not to be who you, my fellow man, were created to be to encourage those who are waiting to offer the world the same aspirations.