Notes Towards an Essay on Responsibility, Part One.

Responsibility has a positive and negative charge. The positive charge is gratitude, appreciation, loving-kindness towards oneself and others. The negative charge is 'heaviness' of any kind, be it terminal seriousness or plain old guilt.

The positive and negative charges of responsibility, then, can be formulated as a dictum:

It is easier to attract oneself into being more responsive than it is to push oneself to shoulder responsibility.

The basic exercise of responsibility is making lists. If I do not make a list then I become listless. Lists that work attract me into to paying attention afresh. Lists that don't work make me feel heavy and dutiful.

The two lists everyone agrees are most important are lists of what IS, not what is NOT: of these the most important are called the Gratitude List and the Achievement List. Every day I write three things I appreciate down, one two three. And every day I write three things I have achieved in the past 24 hour period. It can be brushing my teeth or it can be doing my tax paperwork. Any achievement is good as long as it feels progressive.

Making these two lists expresses an intention to feel good and to achieve good things in the coming day. If they feel heavy, I re-mind myself that I want to feel good and achieve good things today. If I feel stuck I say "I want to feel good and achieve good things". If I feel stuck and hopeless I either do the secret practice to get out of any stuck situation Doing Anything You Can Do, or I go to sleep.