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Understanding Emotional Responsibility, Part II
on duty, fault, justice, and Jeff Bezos
Last week, I wrote an article called “Understanding Emotional Responsibility.” This article is a follow-up, but I’ll sum the previous one up for you here so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to:
What we call “emotional responsibility,” or saying, “I take responsibility for how I feel and don’t blame you for it” is rooted in a belief that our feelings are independent of someone else’s actions. What we call “emotional projection,” or saying “You take responsibility for how I feel and I do blame you for it” is rooted in a belief that our feelings are dependent on someone else’s actions.
Both are true. Neither is the point of emotional responsibility. Responsibility just means “ability to respond” to a given situation. We cannot change the past. All we can choose is how we respond to what is happening now, and we all have different abilities to respond to a given situation. Having power over others creates a greater ability to respond. Circumstances that cause someone to be out of control of their own emotional responses — such as being triggered, phobic or addicted — limit one’s ability to respond.
We typically think of “responsibility” as two things: fault, and duty. But neither fault, nor duty, actually exist…
