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Okay, I have agreed with most of the sections of this book up until now. I have to put my foot down on the Being the Board chapter. To a certain extent, yes, we need to take responsibility for the known risks we have put ourselves victim of. Take for example you decide to build a house on a flood plain as in the example in the book, you should not be devastated and blame others for the declaring yourself an unwilling victim of a known risk. However, we cannot always foresee the future, and sometimes, bad things happen to good people. I will not twist the situation so that I will somehow blame myself for every situation. It just might be someone else’s fault.When you are in a position of leadership and you assume responsibility for failure at some level; I get that. I am the Yearbook Advisor for the district and try to allow the students as much freedom of responsibility and creativity as possible. However, when push comes to shove, the District will not blame or fire students; it will be the teacher that will feel the conviction. I am upfront and honest with my students while they choose every opportunity to put off their chores to make sure the Yearbook is completed in a timely manner. I call myself the Queen of the classroom and it has sent the appropriate message. Time will tell.
Hi Tracy,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we can't foresee the future, and yes, bad things do happen from time to time. If we think about it negatively, the outcome will probably be negative. If we think about it more positively, positive outcome will happen regardless. You're right about being the leadership position. We will all take the blame for the negatives. The best we can do is to enroll ourselves.
@Tracy, I've got to agree with you. While I have enjoyed and been inspired by every other section of the Art of Possibility book, I was not able to wrap my head around the Chapter 10 concept of Being the Board. I realize that it is not about being passive or seeing yourself as a victim of circumstances, and I want to understand how to be positive in every situation. I plan to reread the Art of Possibility again in the future and believe that I will gain new insights and understanding every time that I revisit this powerful book.
ReplyDeleteI was at the same point you seem to be expressing here about being the board and I agree sometimes the responsibility lies with someone else. But at the same time as I read through this section of the text, I think it's more than taking responsibility. As in the example from the text of the driver who was rear-ended, the driver had no responsibility in getting hit s/he was doing everything correctly & was still hit. I think being the board in this instance is about taking back the control from the driver who hit him/her and acknowledging, like you said "sometimes, bad things happen to good people." By being the board and taking back control, the person who was hit can move forward without fear or anger motivating his/her decisions. I don't think by any means being the board was intended that anyone should take responsibility for something that wasn't their fault to begin with.
ReplyDeleteBeing the board tends to be the most difficult idea for the book, mainly because it seems to unfairly remove responsibility from those responsible and assign fault to those who just happen to be there. If you dig a little deeper you might see that the point isn't to remove responsibility from anyone, but to help begin the healing by stopping the "blame game" and have the "victim" remove the power of the offender by claiming ones whole life, removing that or those areas where the offender can continue to hurt. Responsibility isn't removed or moved. It's a bit like that prayer, "let me change the things that I can and have the wisdom to know the difference." After a misfortune I will remove the pathway into my life where that person hurt me, so that I can heal and move on. I was a part of what happened, so I take responsibility for my part. I will learn and be the better for it. At the same time, what happens to the other person and their journey continues to be their journey. I will not waste time waiting for an apology or restitution. If one happens, all the better, but I am not dependent or vulnerable to the need to have that question answered. So, one is working on ones self, making a way through a difficult event, removing the black mark. But the other is still responsible within their own life. It's matter of perspective.
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