RESPONSIBILITY

It seems that I have had some degree of responsibility most of my adult life. Not really much more than anybody else, I guess, but since it was mine I felt it more than I'd feel somebody else's. When I worked for the telephone company the responsibility I felt was for my family. When the boys were gone from home, and I left corporate life, we started our own business and the responsibility then was to get business. After I self-retired from the speaking business and got into Lab rescue, it seemed the responsibility got more personal. I had living creatures depending on me for their very life. We also at that time, to compound the responsibility for living things, had two horses, two cats and seven dogs.

It was soon after that my folks began to show the effects of age. Being their only living child the responsibility for them became mine, and I was 1000 miles away. I handled dad’s financial matters, arranged for and sent the payment to his care giver, made the decision about mother going to the nursing home, talked to dad once or twice a day, and flew to visit them every three months. Being a long-distance care giver, I didn't have the physical involvement of their day-to-day care, but not being there intensified my mental commitment and feeling of responsibility. During this period I spent my time writing a blog, answering emails, commenting on Facebook, exercising and doing "chores" around the property. Their future was always on my mind. (How sick might they get, would their money last, etc.) My parents were my number one responsibility. I made life and death decisions for them; they really had no one else, and I was a long way away.

The last couple of years I began to feel the weight of the imagined and real responsibility for my folks and our remaining animals. I then wondered what different things I would do, how I would live my life differently with little or no responsibility. Without my folks and with minimal animals, would that boulder, lifted off my shoulder, free me up to travel, volunteer or write the great American novel?

My mother died first in the nursing home. All but one of our dogs died and dad deteriorated enough to also go to the nursing home. I arranged for his former care giver to visit him in the nursing home because he desperately needed some contact with his past life. Dad died ten months after entering the home.

There I was, no parents and only one dog and one cat to have"responsibility" for. Now is the time for the new Tom to emerge. All my thoughts and ideas of what I would do when this time came were ready to be put into play.

One year later, not only have I not "blossomed," things are actually a bit worse. How could that happen? This is one of my most profound life lessons. Responsibility was not stopping me from doing things; it was what made me do things. Responsibility was the glue that held it all together. Yes, I spent time writing a blog, answering emails, commenting on Facebook, exercising and doing "chores," but that just filled in the time between engaging in my real and very important purpose in life, caring for my folks. Without a meaningful purpose, am I destined to spend the rest of my life writing a blog, answering emails, commenting on Facebook exercising and doing "chores?"

As the saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for."

I'll figure something out.

******************************************************************

After I finished the draft of the above article I was listening to a Podcast of Freakonomics ( based on three fun Freakonomics books) . The subject was thinking like children. Listening to this completely changed my thinking and answered the concerns I had just written about. As a child I had no real responsibility, I got up in the morning and took the day as it came. From child to senior came the responsibility portion of life. Think about this, think about how alike a 100-year-old person is to a 1-year-old child. (I'm sure I don't have to go into detail. ) I discovered the obvious, I am hanging on to a portion of my life that is gone, I need to resurrect the inner child and get up each morning and take the day as it comes. No longer am I caring for my folks, watching over animals, writing books, giving speeches to hundreds of people. The main job I may have for the day is to rearrange my sock drawer, and that's OK. Setting all the motivational stories about Colonel Sanders aside, to reach retirement age and look back at what we have left behind, to look at how the world will be different because we were in it and to accept the fact that there is a good chance we will not discover a cure for cancer, win an Oscar or start a wildly successful chicken franchise, may well be the answer to an older life well lived.

I guess my responsibility now it to get up each morning and do the hell out of what the day brings. I can do that.