SAL is Not Only About YOU

 

Chapter 6

SAL is Not Only About YOU 

I am responsible.

        What does it really mean to be responsible? 

Freedom Focused suggests it means two basic things. 

First, as Dr. Stephen R. Covey taught, being responsible means you have developed "the ability to choose your response" to a situation—regardless how you may feel about it. (1) This ability gives YOU the FREEDOM and POWER to avoid becoming a complacent victim of your circumstances and other situational variables. It empowers you instead to rise above negative, painful, and even tragic events to ultimately choose your own destiny in life.  

Second, responsibility means you are accountable to others for your choices. This responsibility potentially extends to a dozen different potential persons, groups, or other entities, as follows:

1. 
   Yourself
2. Significant Other
3. Immediate Family Members
4. Extended Family Members
5. Friends
6. Neighbors
7. Colleagues
8. Other people around you—including strangers—that could possibly be affected or influenced by your choices
9. Organizations, including the Community, State, and Nation in which you reside
10. Global population
11. Planet Earth
12. God/the Universe/Serendipity, etc. 

In discussing the subject of Self-Action Leadership, we understandably talk a lot about self-improvement and personal development. In so doing, however, we must explicitly emphasize that SAL is about helping others as much as it is about helping yourself. 

SERVICE to others ensures that your efforts at personal change and growth don't evolve into narcissism—or worse, into evil. 

It is important, therefore, to ask yourself the question: Why do I want to help myself? 

There are many potentially noble answers to this question. At Freedom Focused, we suggest that the noblest answer of all is: So you can more effectively help and serve others!

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once insightfully stated: Life's most persistent question is: 'what are you doing for others?'"  

"Life's most persistent question is: 

'what are you doing for others?'"

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As self-action leaders, it is important to to acknowledge that our speech and actions impact and influence—for good or ill—others around us. This makes us ethically and morally accountable to others for what we think about, say, and do. It also creates, by default, DUTIES that we all have by virtue of our membership in the human race. As previously mentioned, we refer to these basic human responsibilities as Existential Duties.

The reality and presence of Existential Duties elevates the substance of our thoughts, words, and deeds into legitimate moral matters that each of us is duty-bound to continually address throughout our lives.

SAL may begin with YOU and you alone, but it immediately begins to extend outward to your relationships, familial responsibilities, organizational duties, and civic stewardships. Thus, we are all responsible to everyone we impact or influence in any way in our personal, organizational, civic, national, and global lives—and in this prioritized order. 

The order is important because you can only help others if you are in good working condition yourself. Similarly, families and organizations can only help communities, states, nations, and the global populace and planet if these entities themselves have integrity and can effectively work together on realistic long-term solutions.

Unfortunately, many mix up and therefore confuse this essential order.

Johann Wolgang von Goethe
1749-1832

As a result, they end up sacrificing their talents, education, relationships, and sometimes even their personal health and hygiene on pet projects aimed at theoretically "saving the world" while their own houses and lives are disordered and in disarray.

As Goethe once cautioned: Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

"Things which matter most must never be

at the mercy of things which matter least."

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

At Freedom Focused, we hold that all human beings have an Existential Duty to try their very best to develop nobler characteristics of SAL within themselves for the holistic, long-term benefit of themselves and others. This duty springs froth from the reality that, like it or not, we all live interconnected lives. Thus, our decisions always impact and influence other people, either directly or indirectly—whether we intend for them to, or not.

John Donne
1572-1631

In the ageless wisdom and eloquent prose of the poet, John Donne:

"No Man is an Island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away from the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontory were, as well as if a Manor of they friends, or of thine own were; Any Man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." (2)

Whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not, Life has granted you the right to direct your own existence in this world. This right is accompanied by a solemn responsibility to conduct and direct your life in ways that contribute positively to the long-term growth, development, and freedom of yourself and others.  

This means that it is SELFISH and WRONG to live only for yourself.

Ethical and moral living involves carefully considering how YOUR actions will affect, impact, and influence other human beings and life forms, including the planet-at-large. This means you are responsible for cleaning up the messes you make; it also means you must sometimes take part in cleaning up messes you had no part in creating—with the humble recognition that others have taken part in cleaning up your messes over the years.  

To remind myself of this duty, I strive to pick up at least one piece of trash I didn't throw down every day of my life. While one piece of trash per day by one person (me) isn't going to make a considerable difference in the world's littering problem, the power of the paradigm and practice in my life—and my ability to share with and teach my practice to others—just might have a sizable impact in the end.

SAL Mantra

Pick up ONE piece of trash every day

that you didn't throw down.

While we do hold important duties to others and the world in which we live, we must never forget that our capacity to help others is rooted in our own health and well-being. In the grand scheme of things, you aren't going to be worth a hill of beans to anyone or anything—including the planet—unless and/or until your own life and house are in order. 

To wit: while caring for the Planet is vitally important, it should never trump caring for the humans who inhabit and care for it. Environmentalism happens naturally as a by-product of Existential Growth, Freedom, and maturity—after individuals have first cleaned up their own lives. The same principle holds true for family life, education, politics, and everything else. 

Self-action leaders must always remember the simple, yet profound lesson taught routinely by flight attendants the world over: Securely fasten your own air mask before assisting others with theirs. 

SAL Mantra

If you really want to help other people, then go work on yourself. (3)

In Your Journal

• What impact or influence do you currently have on other people (i.e. family members, friends, colleagues, etc.)?

• Is your current impact or influence on others positive and constructive or negative and destructive?

• What is something you could begin doing TODAY to contribute more positively and constructively to those with whom you live and work?

• What is something you could do to provide conscious and intentional service to one or more of the following groups: family, neighbors, school, organization, community, state, nation, or world?  

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 387th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 198th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.   

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 386 FF Blog Articles 

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES  

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS   

Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection

Click HERE for a complete listing of Self-Action Leadership Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Fitness, Heath, & Wellness Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Biographical & Historical Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Current Events, Cultural, Philosophical, & Miscellaneous Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Dr. JJ's Autobiographical Articles

.........................

Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.  

And if you liked this blog post, please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and students—and encourage them to sign up to receive future articles for FREE every Wednesday.

To sign up, please email freedomfocused@gmail.com and say SUBSCRIBE, or just YES, and we will ensure you receive a link to each new blog article every Wednesday.  

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbooks    

Chapter 6 Notes:

1.  Covey, S.R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Page 71. Italics added.

2.  Booty, J. (1990). John Donne: Selections From Divine Poems, Sermons, Devotions, and Prayers. NewYork, NY: Paulist Press. Page 58.

3.  This mantra is derived from a similar quote by Mother Theresa of Calcutta: If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.