In their book, On My Honor, I Will, Randy Pennington and Marc Bockmon write:
“The most quoted excuse for not getting involved is “It’s not my job.” Business people step over the homeless in their path because helping them is “not my job.” Charitable organizations are unable to provide resources because those asked to give say, “It’s not my job.”
“At times, this excuse can go to ridiculous lengths. Peter Brown tells of a patron in Lindy’s restaurant on Broadway in New York who asked a passing waiter, “Can you tell me what time it is?” The waiter replied, “Sorry, sir, but that’s not my table!” Giving someone else’s customer the time of day was “not my job.”
What’s the most outlandish example you’ve seen so far of someone saying, “That’s not my job?”
Tags: responsibility
If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,000 that carried over no balance from day to day…Allowed you to keep no cash in your account, and every evening canceled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day, what would you do? Most probably you would draw out every cent every day, of course, and use it to your advantage!
Well, you have such a bank, and its name is TIME. Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balances, it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow.
With that illustration in your mind, what will you do different, if anything, today with your account?
Tags: account, budget, responsibility, time
The news channel reported that a professional baseball player had been suspended from the team when the coach learned that he was addicted to cocaine. The player told reporters that his drug abuse wasn’t his fault; he had the disease of chemical dependency.
Some people may indeed have a genetic predisposition to addiction, but we aren’t facing our problem if we won’t accept responsibility for the choices we’ve made. It’s easier to say, “I’m sick,” than it is to say, “I’m wrong.”
What are your thoughts on the player’s comments?
Tags: addiction, choices, responsibility, sin
Mike Mayberry of Manchester, Missouri, told the following story to Reader’s Digest:
“Determined to have one last, lazy day of fishing before summer’s end, I purposely ignored the leaky faucet and the broken gate – household projects that had awaited me all summer. When my wife asked, “What are you going to do today?” I grinned and answered, “It starts with F and ends with ISH.”
“OH, good,” she replied, “You’re finally going to FinISH up those projects.”
One of the primary roles of a husband is to make his wife feel secure. When she develops that honey-do list and posts it on the refrigerator (or wherever she posts it), she has transferred that responsibility over to him. She assumes it will get done in a timely manner.
It is a wise man that doesn’t feed her insecurity by making her feel uncovered in a dark world. If you’re going to put it off, tell her when you’ll do it – and keep your word. Thus shall you make your wife feel secure and under your protective cover.
Tags: humor, marriage, responsibility, work