One of the things I find interesting about accountability is how often the word triggers people instead of empowering them. Have had multiple conversations about it this week and it keeps popping up as a theme.
Here's a theory.
We all have needs and some of them we need to meet ourselves. Throughout our lives we continuously grow and grow to meet more of own needs and become less dependent upon others.
Self sufficiency is something I value and admire in others and it seems to be a constant quest to surface honest needs and seek out ways to meet them. That humble moment when you realize that you can be sufficient in an area that you otherwise thought you could not, can be a great source of personal fulfillment, pride and self love.
When I hear people ask for what they need from others I also see this as an authentic indicator of where they are in their journey. Some needs can be met by others. Teach a man to fish if he is hungry. But feeding a man every day can become dependency.
What if we all worked to eliminate the need for our current contributions so that we could move on to support even greater needs?
What if the rise to self actualization is about establishing frameworks that meet certain needs sustainably and then letting them go, again and again? And what if we all did that?
A hungry man learns to fish; teaches other hungry men; then learns to build houses and teaches again.
What if all of us pursued our passions with that intent and aimed our strengths at meeting our needs first then meeting the needs of others?
Then you have this notion of holding others accountable. I find this fascinating.
When someone says "here is what I need from you" I can't imagine a more honest statement if it is genuine. But when those words fall upon the ears of another, and in particular a person who is not listening to their own needs and expressing them, it can feel like a burden to them, or an obligation or even an expectation.
Just sit back and listen to conversations. I don't know about you but all too often I hear "this is what I need" "yeah, well this is what I need" "well my need is more important" "well I don't know who's going to do this but I need it so there".
I have a lot of compassion for this - it's just where much of humanity is right now, and it's not an easy paradigm to shift.
If I'm starving and I say to the man that knows how to fish, "please catch me a fish - I am hungry," why wouldn't that man meet the immediate need out of compassion? But from that moment on if I am that man who knows how to fish, my responsibility is to teach the hungry man how to meet his own needs. And if he continues to expect me to fish for him, then it is my responsibility to hold him accountable to what I have taught him. In these moments, while painful at times, I should stand back until the hunger drives him to action. That lesson is no longer about fishing. It's now about him realizing that he can fish and meet his own needs and seeing him as capable of doing so. To see him otherwise is reflection of my character.
A man who asks for fish when starving but won't fish himself when taught and who returns to starvation, and even then puts his life on the line to validate the belief that others should take care of him, is the trickiest manipulation of them all. It takes advantage of others and feeds it's own counter productive cycle.
Buried beneath this cycle is a sense of entitlement and this is not the same as self worth. It's not that humanity is lazy but rather that being human is not easy. What if we never ever forgot that?
Now, I'm not talking about people who can't learn a new skill. Some people are here to teach us how to give and to be compassionate.
I'm talking about people who are capable.
When you value yourself you are responsible for meeting your needs and sensing when a man has been taught to fish but won't do it. It is in telling that man - No, that you affirm your self worth. It is in having a boundary and modeling that boundary with this man that you create an environment where others feel safe to pursue their gifts without fear of exploitation. You also affirm the truth, and that is that reality is not always going to be easy. What if anyone who portrays that it is, is lying? And what if portraying reality with it's challenges and it's triumphs - is beautiful?
One of the darkest moments of my life and one I am so very grateful for has been to hold that boundary with a person that I knew could fish for themselves. And one of the other darkest moments of my life has been experiencing that boundary held by another in a time when I did not want to fish for myself but when fishing was exactly what I needed to do.
The shadow, our darker sides, our destructive sides - can be great gifts when we give them bigger purpose and especially when that purpose serves something bigger than ourselves.
This is where truth can hurt. Accountability is only fun if you accept and befriend it.
Taking accountability in each moment, striving to be accountable - first for meeting your needs, then for following through on commitments to others, then for pursuing purpose, then for lifting up humanity .... what if we all accepted this path? And, what if this path is the authentic human condition?
Can you really outsource personal accountability? Can you really put that in the hands of governments or organizations or communities?
I think you can have businesses and services that help people be accountable and I think you can have laws that hold people accountable but what if there is a future state where there is no need for even these?
We teach children to get good grades and to learn but do we teach them how to be accountable for themselves? And I don't mean accountable for the standards that others impose on them. Do we teach them how to discover who they are and what they need and how to chart a course in life to meet these needs? Do we have enough room for unlimited possibilities in terms of these courses and paths towards need fulfillment being expressed?
And what about the shadow of humanity? Can't we unite in understanding that our darker sides can serve such a bigger purpose? What if our darkness holds a boundary when accountability is the lesson to be taught? Instead of using our darkness to destroy one another's paths or to project our insecurities onto each other, or to judge or to hate, why can't our darkness be used to protect our own paths and to hold the boundary of our sacred space?
Someone criticized me today. My shadow demolished their words in my head and heart. Then my light empathized with them.
Someone tried to blame me for their problem today. My shadow firmly held the line as I cut through that blame and observed who they are right now and where they are at. My light forgave them and created a possibility for us to move forward.
The parts of me that would have tried to please people in the past, would have taken on their request to shoulder blame or to absorb criticism. And then, my shadow would have punished me for it, or even worse - would have taken it out on someone else.
I am over being Pollyanna and I am over being endlessly optimistic. Pursuing possibility is no more different than deciding to go right or left. It can be emotional, exciting or simply turning. What I love about Appreciative Inquiry is that possibility begins with the craft of questioning and where you end up is dependent upon the questions that you ask. Why not craft questions that pursue the best interest of everyone?
What if the questions that we ask have enough room for the light and the dark to work together? And what if being accountable for all of who we are and all of our needs is the authentic human experience?
What if it's not just about being positive or just being negative but rather it's about moving forward?
What if the pursuit of happiness is actually the pursuit of being accountable for all of who you are?
And what if who you are, is a lifetime - of bliss and pain and laughter and sorrow and selfishness and liberation and focus and laziness and commitment and forgetfulness and love and hate and creation and destruction and what if your character or even your destiny, is decided by how accountable you hold yourself to owning and learning from each of these?
Lastly, what if that authentic sense of accomplishment is to earn a badge for each and in way that you are personally proud of? Wouldn't that make for a fun app like Foursquare? :)
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