What is Responsibility?

While the word ‘responsibility’ confers power, authority, importance and leadership upon a person, role or office bearer, it invariably comes with a sense of burden, duty, liability and obligation. It is as if there is something demanding, imposing or draining about being responsible, implying that acting responsibly can only be maintained for a limited time, after which we will need to withdraw, let off steam and recover — and perhaps be irresponsible to somehow compensate (see Integrity).

What if there is another dimension to responsibility, and from our capacity to access another intelligence it is possible to work, be in relationship and live life purposefully and be energised rather than drained by it? This, without the reactive narrative that tells us responsibility is an obligation, a burden, an imposition for which we need some ‘off switch’ or escape. Our authors in their What is Responsibility articles examine this possibility brought to life, writing from their own experiences and revelations, a perspective on life before and after The Way of The Livingness became their lived way.