Not Me...

Not Me…

Dan McGee, M.P.A, B.A Social and Criminal Justice
PATROL SYSTEMS LLC
July 6, 2014

 

Today’s day and age is riddled with “not me” people. I am not referring to the character from the Family Circus cartoon, but those people who are never the problem or who never stake claim to being part of the problem. You know, it is always someone else, “not me”.

One of our greatest customs is to pass the buck. Why? Because many of us don’t want to deal with confrontation or responsibility.  I recall a story of an employee who once wanted to take a day off and didn’t follow procedure, making it way more complicated than it needed to be. Instead of saying, ‘yes, I didn’t follow procedure and I’ll take care of it’, it became a blame game on someone else who told them to do it that way. My response was short and to the point…That is, if you’re dumb enough not to follow procedure because someone else told you not to, well then…

I think in government we have that same attitude. Like voting for the Iraq invasion and when it was no longer convenient it became a blame the other party. Not me, I didn’t do that, it was the other party. My favorite one-liner comes from Hillary Clinton with the Benghazi issue when she responded “what difference does it make now”. That is a “not me” statement.

We have parents who do the same thing and then teach their children the same lessons. They don’t want to work hard, they don’t want to do the things they should be doing, and when the poop hits the fan it becomes a blame game. “Not me, that’s not my problem, it is someone else’s”. While nuisance complaints are really the least of my worries as an officer of the law, I always find dealing with the public nuisances sort of funny. I have people that we deal with every year. Seriously, every year for the same thing! And at what point do they take any responsibility for just mowing their damn lawn? Keeping their cars registered? Making sure all of the buildings they own aren’t falling over or a public hazard? And my favorite response when dealing with people is that the ‘police are picking on them’! Really? Picking on you because you can’t do what you’re told? Picking on you because you don’t believe you have to listen? Picking on you because the law says one thing and you want to do the other?

Biblically we are to take responsibility for ourselves. In Colossians it tells us to “clothe yourself in… humility”. The very first story I can think to illustrate of what I am speaking is that of Adam and Eve. They were commanded not to eat the fruit, yet Eve did and tempted Adam. What happened? Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed a serpent. What if Adam had taken responsibility for himself? What if Eve would have taken responsibility for herself? Basically, when we deflect our own responsibility to others we are not only denying our responsibility, we are lying to ourselves.

The great thing about being a Christian is that you have an opportunity to change all of this. But, it starts with a deep look inside. If you are one of those people who always deflect responsibility take a moment and think about it? Does your mindset or actions factor in at all with what transpires in your life? You bet it does! I don’t think many of us are really capable of looking inward that deep and saying “I am responsible”.  The other piece to this is society can no longer sit by and allow others to get away with the “not me” attitude. We don’t have to be irresponsible and call out people like we are some sort of WWE wrestling show, but we need to build the courage to say “STOP! Take some responsibility! You HAVE a part in this!” When we allow people to get away with not being responsible then we are part of that problem, because we just became enablers. I sure hope no one said “not me” when you read that...

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

 

When we finally take responsibility then others will see us as people who are true leaders. When we take responsibility the many bad things will start to become fewer. When we take responsibility for our actions then maybe our country can truly say we are united. I have no crazy thought in my head that everyone can do this, but most can. I believe that most want to, but because we are human we will take what people give us. If people give us a pass then we will take it and shun our responsibility.

God Bless and God Bless America!

 

 

 

Tags: Leadership, Christian Principles

 

 Picture Credits:

NOT ME - https://gracewalk.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/not-about-me-475x489.png
FOOT WASH - https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCX4YOaItC95sQ6iHEq374fVYw47FJv4tBjM9Q8UGgc_1uKSf277n25gey8eZh7yfIrepbDwdJUYX3i1EbVcCPmJxZf6HKFppnrOtG0mPXPRAXhxWmBVd_oypIGp4UzGcuTaVcDE7KkEA/s1600/christ_washing_feet_by_ethalenskye-d3dd3to.jpg
T ROOSEVELT QUOTE - http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/personal-responsibility