Why not make a daily pleasure out of a daily necessity?
Peter Mayle
There are a number of reasons why I love reading Peter Mayleโs narratives of life in Provence. None the least of which is the culinary adventure that invariably takes center stage in every story. Three-hour lunches over bottles of rosรฉ, assorted goatโs milk cheeses, and saucisson. Six-course dinners that would rejuvenate and revivify the weariest of souls. Peter Mayle makes me want to cook. To spend long, lazy days in the kitchen baking tarts, madeleines, making confit of summer vegetables, picking, chopping, and relishing in bouquets of fresh herbs from the garden.
But, I digress.
Given the introduction, you may be wondering what on earth Peter Mayle and the accompanying quote have to do with a blog post on โthe art of responsibilityโ. A lot, actually.
Itโs my experience that most discussions of responsibility center on stuff we need to do whether we like it or not. Fulfilling social roles, familial obligations, earning a living, suitably maintaining our health through diet and exercise, being conscious of and respecting others (whether we like them or not), taking reasonable care of our belongings, personal property, etc. And while these are all surely dimensions of responsibility, they are not what interest me here. In fact, Iโll go a step further and suggest that any definition of personal responsibility that only focuses on these things is woefully inadequate. Because it omits the obligation to be fully alive.

And for as many years as Iโve been writing about this topicโabout what it means to be fully human, to cultivate our passions and potentialities, to engage fully, actively, and sensorially with our environmentโI hadnโt thought to put it terms of responsibility. That is, I have a responsibility to be alive during the moments of my life. In fact, this is the greatest responsibility I have to myself. Not to be inert. Not to be passive. Not to engage in behaviors that dull or distract me. But to be alive.
The basic step in achieving inward freedom is โchoosing oneself.โ Thisโฆmeans to affirm oneโs responsibility for oneโs self and oneโs existence. It is the attitude which is opposite to blind momentum or routine existence; it is an attitude of aliveness and decisiveness; it means that one recognizes that he exists in this particular spot in the universe, and he accepts the responsibility for his existence.
Rollo May
To my mind, per Mayโs definition, responsibility is an art, central to all others. It is the decision to be alive. To transform that which is necessity, that which is routine, into a form of enjoyment. Because when I choose otherwise, I am choosing a kind of inertia, a kind of blind acceptance. There is a major difference in attitude here between picking up our burdens and carrying them as a matter of responsibility and creating, or co-creating, the moments of our lives, much as an artist would. In the former, there is no possibility of joy, of gratitude, transformation, or creativityโthe highest of human potentialities.
I have a responsibility to myself to be alive during the moments of my life. To use the life within me to beget a more creative life. To transform drudgery into play. To transform the necessities of life into ceremony, celebration. To accept suffering when it comes, while remembering that there is always a reason to be grateful. Indeed, to be fully alive is to be grateful. It is a move toward beauty and goodness.
I like thinking this way. That I am my own source. That being the creatorโthat being the artistโof my life is not a luxury. It is an obligation. Quite possibly the greatest obligation I have to myself. Yes. Yes, I think so.
10 responses to “On the Art of Responsibility”
I love to dive into your poems and your essays. Both forms of your writing are delightful and transcendent. This essay is full of zeal and gusto. Fantastic! ๐๐ผ
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Thank you so much, Michele! This is a topic I feel passionately about. I am happy you enjoyed the essay. ๐
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Always a pleasure! ๐
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Likewise ๐
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This is excellent!
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Thank you, Bob!
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Oh My! This is so so wonderful! There are so many things you have penned in this piece that make me want to run over to your house and sit down and talk about ๐ Spot on, my friend. I love how you have made responsibility a beautiful opportunity to be active and creative in our own lives…tapping into our artistry that we are all born with…engaging with life with gratitude and active choice to pour into this world our unique fully lived life…soooo good, my friend. You made my day ๐
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Thank you so much, my friend. I do believe we owe it to ourselves to live creatively–to fully engage and make something special out of the routines of our existence–to enjoy life, and that to do otherwise is, in some sense, irresponsible. I am so glad this post resonated. ๐ Of the many different meanings of “responsibility,” I think we often forget the most rudimentary: to be alive and all that entails. I always enjoy reading your comments, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
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[…] that I quite grasped it myself until recently. Not until I started thinking in terms of personal responsibility, specifically Rollo Mayโs assertion that we have a duty to ourselves to be alive. For being […]
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[…] by using my body, by engaging my senses to the fullest and fulfilling the single most important responsibility I have to myselfโto be aliveโ the miraculous is always in my backyard. Itโs in my neighbors, […]
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