The Courage to Carry Responsibility

It seems sometimes that there is less, or at least too little, willingness on the part of too many people to accept real responsibility⎯for themselves or for their decisions, of for the soundness and success of enterprises or institutions, or, in some instances, for much of anything at all. So many there are who seem to want to get out from under, with a maximum amount of so-called security and a minimum amount of responsibility.

(Some, it seems, are unwilling to be responsible even for their own acts and utterances, and are disposed to shift responsibility even for their own sins and shortcomings to circumstances altogether outside themselves.) And yet if the world is to run⎯if anything is to run⎯if there is to be soundness and security, someone has to take responsibility; someone has to make decisions; someone has to carry the weight and the worry; someone has to see that there is safety and solvency; someone has to face the facts⎯which not everyone is willing to do.

But some who are less willing to carry any real weight seem to feel that they have unlimited license to criticize the decisions that other men make, and to misjudge motives. Every honor or office, every privilege or right carries with it real responsibility. And yet from the comfortable position of having little or no responsibility, and of having the advantage of second sight, men may harshly judge other men who have heavy responsibility, and who have to make decisions on first sight.

It takes courage to carry responsibility. It takes courage to make decisions. It takes courage to take criticism⎯especially from those who won’t share the risk or the weight or the worry⎯especially from those who play little or no part in the performance.

Men after all are men. Some are wiser than others, some more able, some more informed, but we cannot expect perfection of any of them. We can expect honor and honesty, integrity and intelligence, prudence and candor and courage. All these we may expect⎯these high qualities of character⎯but not perfection.

And with this thought before us, we cite again these lines from Lincoln: “I do the very best I know how⎯the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so.” That’s about as much as men may expect of men⎯the very best they know how⎯along with a willingness to accept a share of responsibility, and with an awareness that there is no right without real responsibility⎯not even the right to criticize.