Taking Responsibility For Your Life
A story is told by Zig Ziglar of how a certain village in the U.S had trouble with wild pigs.The pigs had been a theirs and a few of them managed to escape and became wild over time. They ravaged their crops and were a constant menace. The only way to stop them was to go out there, hunt them down and ensure they killed every single one of them. So the village folk geared up for the trek but after a week or two they figured this was a futile exercise and told themselves they are to live with it, as the pigs had become sufficiently clever as to be impossible to catch. Just as they had lost heart, along came a queerly dressed man with a horse-drawn cart full of long wood planks. They wondered what this fellow was up to and he informed them he had heard of their predicament and was come as their solution. After a lengthy presentation on how he was going to catch the wild pigs, in which the village folk could not grasp he went up the mountains to do his job.
He came down a fortnight later. Informing them were he had all the hogs trapped in a certain place. Amazed and unbelieving, the village folk inquired as to how he did it. He told them of how the wild animal is protected by instinct in its quest for survival. He had, on the first day dug four holes to make a rectangular shape and put some grain right in the centre and went away. The pigs came along to check who and what the intruder to their domain was up to, and whoa! there was grain. They were suspicious and didn't even attempt to go for it. So the Queer man came again to continue his project, putting a pole in each hole, this day the pigs came a bit closer, still paranoid. The man, continuing plank after plank in building a pen, the hogs became more tolerant and to cut the long story short...one day they were all in the pen munching on the free food as he jumped to close the trap door and that was the end of it.
How could these seemingly witty animals be outfoxed by this guy? He knew that putting free food before the pigs over a period of time would let down their guard and make them dependent. They would resist the urge for a time, but it would dawn on them that the food was there, and it was good, and free for their taking...and having done so for a week or so they would stop to fear for their lives but be expectant of a free daily treat of grain found in the pen.
Our lives are so created that we have a charging force in us, that compels us towards the best we can be, to keep us from danger and such things as would destroy any such possibility of becoming what is within us to be. It is that sudden reminder of an important appointment, or the pain we feel when we fail in a certain respect, that small voice that makes us believe the impossible and pushes us into actions contrary to our will but turn out to be the best things we could have possibly done.
The story above relates of how the pigs lost their plot. They were drawn from their natural course by the strong enticing force of ...something for nothing. That power in them to know how to care of themselves was lulled by the availability of their need for no price. Their self-preservation mechanism was tripped down, leaving them susceptible to whatever came their way. They stopped acting of themselves but began to live on what another handed to them without heir input...and it was their point of ruin.
This is the fate the many of us, our brothers, sisters and kindred face. The lure of getting something for nothing. Such possibilities have detrimental effects on our lives and futures as they pull us away from our right of responsibility. They make us slavish, beggars unable to live for ourselves, no longer responsible for our lives and what they will become. The responsibility to live one's life is one of the noblest burdens we all carry. To be able to face our troubles, and make the most of our lives.
We receive our lives as seeds not fruit. We receive a piece of land to and by the power in us we make out of it castles, we do not receive wealth but Talents and Skill and by their perfection and exchange we build our wealth, we receive tests and by assailing them we create our testimonies. If we refuse to take responsibility and are content to pile them elsewhere, we lose our true self and the futures that could be ours. Our creativity, is hinged upon the responsibilities we face, upon the problems we are created to solve and the mountains we are to climb. It becomes dormant and dies down should we shun obstacles and shy away from the tasks that are ours. Our intuitive power to win in life wanes whenever we let go of this right of responsibility.
Think through this, search your life and make the point of living the best life possible. Taking responsibility and working your duties you will not fail to become that which is within you to be.
What do you think about this article? Kindly post your views.