The Get-Out-From-Under Attitude...

There is sometimes evident an attitude of wanting to get out from under, not wanting to be accountable to anyone. Young people, for example, sometimes choose to move away from home and family and friends. Work, education, opportunities in other areas, are often good reasons.

But to leave just to cut loose, just to go it alone, just to be free from being accountable to anyone may well not be wise. And before we feel we want to get away, to get out from under, we ought honestly to make sure we don’t want it for the wrong reasons.

No one is always safe. No one can know when he may become ill, or have an accident, or find himself in some serious situation. No one knows all the answers. No one can be sure he is self-sufficient.

Besides, others have much invested in us. Others have taught us, trained us, nursed and nourished us, loved us, and given us part of their lives⎯parents, teachers, doctors, friends, family have done this and much more⎯and they have a right to an interest in us, and we have an obligation to recognize that right.

There is also the fact that if we are alone and without the interest of others in us we could become indifferent and deteriorate. Much of our performance is for others and not for us. We do our best when others expect it of us. If life were simply a matter of satisfying our own selfish selves, there wouldn’t be much progress or improvement. The faith and interest of others leads us to be better⎯and surely we wouldn’t, for the wrong reasons, want to separate ourselves from stabilizing factors and influences, and place ourselves in a position that would make it easier to lower our standards or lose the most precious things a person can possess: virtue, honesty, honor, respect, excellence of purpose and performance.

Almost anything can happen to almost anyone, and the “cut-loose,” “get-out-from-under,” “leave-me-alone” attitude, in this sense, isn’t sensible or safe. To cite a significant sentence: “There is no such thing in human existence as being so high you’re not responsible to anybody.”