Day 76
When I was a vowed monk in a Roman Catholic religious order, I was accountable to many, many people. I had to tell Brother John Gerard when we needed more supplies in the kitchen. I had to tell Brother Karl how exactly I'd spent that twenty-dollar bill I'd been given two months earlier. I had to tell Brother Lawrence John about issues in the laundry room. I had to speak with Father Francis, Brother Michael, and Father James anytime I had issues at school or with my fellow Brothers. The list could go on for paragraphs.
After I left the religious life and received my dispensation from Rome, I was on my own. Though I lived with my parents again on and off for a few years, my life was now completely mine to manage. If there was a money issue, I needed to handle it. If there was a laundry issue, I needed to handle it. If I needed more food or toiletries, if I needed an issue solved at work or at home, it was now all my problem and no one else's. Life was now completely in my own hands, and I had to be accountable for every part of it.
Though most who will read this were not living in monasteries, the growing-up process is still very much the exact same. We are accountable to others in the beginning of our life, and then at some point, perhaps quite suddenly, it's all up to us. We're on our own.
Today, I'm happily partnered to the love of my life, and we've been together well over 12 years now. And I'm happy to be accountable to him as well as myself. I account to him for my health, my wealth (ha), and my life as a whole. We are, both of us, accountable to each other. I know life is easier because there's someone else going through it with me, handling half the chores, managing the finances and bills along with me, and just being there for me in a thousand different ways.
But at the end of the day, there's always just me. I'm the one who closes my own eyelids each night, and I'm the one who thinks about what the day was filled with, and what the next day might bring.
Though I'm happily accountable to my partner Andy, I've always got self-accountability too. It's up to me to look at my life and manage what needs to be managed. If I need to reach out to a friend for advice, or call up an old colleague for a referral, that's on me. Likewise, if I have to complete a project at work, write an article for a website, pick up dinner on the way to a class, or change my password for my checking account, those are all things I'm handling.
We all depend on others for a whole slew of things in this life, but we also depend heavily on ourselves for almost everything that really matters. We are, whether we recognize it or not, constantly self-reliant and constantly self-accountable. At the end of every day, we have to answer to our conscience, our stomach, our body, our brain, and every other part of who we are. We are self-accountable by nature.
As we close our eyes each and every night, we're alone. Even when there's a partner or pet beside us, we still just have this one body and one soul. We're alone by nature. We're self-accountable by nature. We should care about others, and we should help our fellow souls, but at the end of the day, it's important to remember that we can't save others from drowning if we ourselves don't first learn how to swim.
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