personal responsibility
Responsibility: Nature or Nurture?
Anthony Avant
GEN200
04/26/2014
Susan Holliday
A wealthy broker on Wall Street is stuck now after making bad choices on whether to cash in his stocks to pay his million dollar mortgage or work all year to save his home and his job, and a student working two jobs to pay for school is failing out of college because he is missing classes to catch up on sleep. These characters are similar in many ways; neither want to fail, but both have neglected their personal responsibilities. They have both come to an inevitable fact of life that we all have hard choices to make. Some are beyond our control, some are activities we do or morals we follow because they happen to be imperative to our success and our survival just the same. Activities like going to work so we can have shelter and food, or making sure we drink a certain amount of water every week so we wont die. Society has placed personal responsibility on a high pedestal because it is a way to reach our goals and climb higher on the social ladder. Reaching your goals is how society views your success, but it is not just the way you reach your goals, but how you reach them. Personal responsibility is not specific; you cannot judge the importance of a person’s responsibility higher than someone else’s. A student’s college degree and a millionaire’s house can be the same in value depending on how high a person places their priorities. I believe that personal responsibility can be both taught and be instinctual. What I think doesn’t come naturally is a lack of personal responsibility. Neglecting the basic necessities of life and refusing to follow the simple rules of life is what makes someone unable to achieve success not following the simple rules of life is what makes someone unable to achieve success.
Whether it is only because our life depends on it, or so we can get along as good citizens in society does not or shouldn’t matter. When you look at both situations, the
Anthony Avant
GEN200
04/26/2014
Susan Holliday
A wealthy broker on Wall Street is stuck now after making bad choices on whether to cash in his stocks to pay his million dollar mortgage or work all year to save his home and his job, and a student working two jobs to pay for school is failing out of college because he is missing classes to catch up on sleep. These characters are similar in many ways; neither want to fail, but both have neglected their personal responsibilities. They have both come to an inevitable fact of life that we all have hard choices to make. Some are beyond our control, some are activities we do or morals we follow because they happen to be imperative to our success and our survival just the same. Activities like going to work so we can have shelter and food, or making sure we drink a certain amount of water every week so we wont die. Society has placed personal responsibility on a high pedestal because it is a way to reach our goals and climb higher on the social ladder. Reaching your goals is how society views your success, but it is not just the way you reach your goals, but how you reach them. Personal responsibility is not specific; you cannot judge the importance of a person’s responsibility higher than someone else’s. A student’s college degree and a millionaire’s house can be the same in value depending on how high a person places their priorities. I believe that personal responsibility can be both taught and be instinctual. What I think doesn’t come naturally is a lack of personal responsibility. Neglecting the basic necessities of life and refusing to follow the simple rules of life is what makes someone unable to achieve success not following the simple rules of life is what makes someone unable to achieve success.
Whether it is only because our life depends on it, or so we can get along as good citizens in society does not or shouldn’t matter. When you look at both situations, the