Responsibility: The Concentric Circles Model

I think many, maybe most people think about responsibility from an individual event perspective.  By this I mean that if they say they'll feed the cat today, they have to feed the cat today.  If they do, they've behaved responsibly and if they don't, they have not.  I think of that as basic responsibility.  In my opinion, a more complete way to view responsibility is to view it as a system.  I see it as a series of concentric circles.  In that system, the individual is at the center.  The most important responsibility for any person alive is the responsibility they have to themselves.  They have a responsibility to their whole being:  their brain (thoughts), their body (sensations), and their soul (emotions).  If the individual's relationship with their whole being is basically in good, working order, then their responsibility to themselves is just basic maintenance of their internal systems.  This allows the person to turn outward and focus their attention on the external world.  After that inner circle, everyone's concentric circles will be defined differently.  My first responsibilities are to my wife and child.  That's pretty common.  Then it moves out from there.  Extended family, friends, organizations, communities, geographic areas, the Earth, etc. are all among the many possibilities that can be a part of the model, and in any order the person sees fit.

I think that is all pretty straight-forward.  What is less clear is people's understanding of the importance of that inner circle.  There's a strong taboo in our society against taking care of one's whole being.  A good number of people take care of one portion of their being (for example, their brain).  Some people take care of two parts (their brain and their body).  But almost no one takes care of their whole being (brain, body, soul).  And for good reason.  It's a ton of work!  But, in my opinion, it must be done.

Methods for taking care of the brain and body are pretty obvious.  This blog is all about how to take care of the soul, so that's not what we need to talk about.  What needs discussing is the model itself.  In my experience, when people are working in the outer rings of the model, but have not taken care of the inner-most ring (which is almost everyone), they are doing so for a reason.  That reason is that they don't want to deal with what they find there:  themselves!  "Arg!  NOOOO!  Not ME!!!"  That's silly, but true. People don't want to deal with their inner needs.  Sometimes that's because they don't realize the need.  Sometimes it's because it's taboo to deal with those things.  Sometimes, there's significant trauma inside and they are afraid to confront it.  I'm sure there are many more reasons.  But whatever the reason, by refusing to deal with their inner needs, they are forcing themselves to look outward at the world.  Many, probably most people think this is a good thing.  "We shouldn't spend all this time on ourselves.  It's self-centered."  I disagree.  I believe that taking care of our holistic health is a mandatory part of living.  If we refuse to do so, we are running away from our central responsibility.  So all those wonderful things we are doing for other people, doing the dishes for our spouse, taking a child to an event, helping a person in the community, are all things we are really doing as a way to avoid our central responsibility.

"Wait, what?  Doing things for other people is selfish?  That doesn't make sense."  But it does.  We aren't really doing those things for other people.  We are doing them to help us avoid our central responsibility.  So even though they are nice things to do, that make those people happy, we really did them for ourselves, not them.  Hence, selfish.

So if doing things for other people is selfish, how can we ever be anything other than selfish?  The answer to that is to get your relationship with your whole being into good, working order.  It's not about perfection.  I don't think that's even possible.  It's about a system that functions on a basic level.  Physically, if you're 10 pounds over weight, that's not ideal.  But it's only 10 pounds.  Your system is basically working.  But if you're 75 pounds over weight, your system is not working!  You need to fix your system.  Maybe start exercising more, maybe start making healthier food choices, you get the idea.

The same is true emotionally.  If you stay on a mostly even keel, you're not depressed or overly anxious, then your system is probably basically working.  But if you're depressed or suffering from some other mental illness, or even just feel constantly stressed, then your system is not really working.

When you commit to fulfilling your central responsibility, you will slowly learn how to get all your internal systems to a level of basic functioning.  At that point, it is time to turn out toward the world.  Then you can do things for others and have it really be about them, not about selfishly avoiding your own internal needs.  

If everyone in the world was acting from this place of basic internal functioning, we wouldn't even be able to recognize this place.  It would be so different.  And so much better.