“Seek to fulfill your purpose each day.”
Responsibility is assessing what is ours to do to and seeing these tasks through to completion. A proper balance of this trait is where one spreads out the tasks for each other and for self. When one takes on too much responsibility, this leads to stress and the tendency to control situations and take over. At the other end of imbalance, one who is irresponsible takes on little to no tasks and does not realize the ramifications of negligence. When we do what we are beholden and capable of doing with firm resolve, we repair the world and make living for all more bearable.
Consider taking on a new responsibility to lighten someone else’s load.
Fix a mistake and if necessary attend to all consequences sooner than later.
Step up and do a task you would rather put off until later.
Think about what will happen if you say or do what you want to say or do.
Meditation
Daily Questions
What were the seeds that affected your responsibility in various arenas today?
Did a you shirk away from a responsibility today and if so why?
Do you have too many responsibilities? Do you need to spread out your load?
Do you feel resentful, burdened, overwhelmed or content with your current responsibilities?
Do you have more responsibility than you can handle simply because you feel you can do the job better?
Do responsibilities bring stress or purpose to you?
How can you be more responsible tomorrow?
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Quotables
Rabbi Tarfon said: "The day is short, the task is great, the laborers are lazy, the wage is abundant and the master is urgent." -- Avot 2:20
He [Rabbi Tarfon]used to say: "It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet, you are not free to desist from it." -- Avot 2:21
Rabbi Akiva said: "All is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given. The world is judged in goodness, yet all is proportioned to one's work." -- Avot 3:19
Rabbi Elazar of Bartota said: "Render to Him that which is his, for you and all that you have are His, as David said (I Chronicles 29:14): 'For all things come from You, and of Your own have we given you.' " -- Avot 3:8
He [Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa] used to say: "He whose works exceed his wisdom, his wisdom endures; but he whose wisdom exceeds his works, his wisdom will not endure." -- Avot 3:12
Ben Azzai said: "Be eager to fulfill the smallest duty and flee from transgression; for one duty induces another and one transgression induces another transgression." -- Avot 4:2
"Hashem praises a poor person who triumphs over his Evil Nature and returns an object." -- Pesachim 113a
"It's a question of discipline," the little prince told me later on. "When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943, translated from French by Richard Howard
"It is impossible for obstacles not to come, but how terrible for the man through whom they come! He would be better to have a millstone hung around his neck and be cast into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble." -- Mashiach Yeshua, Luke 17:2, DHE
"If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength!" -- Mishlei 24:10