Personal Responsibility

Personal Responsibility, the key to educational success.

While personal responsibility differs from person to person, personal responsibility is one of the keys to success. It is taught and embedded in us by our parents from the minute we are born and as we grow older, we start making our own choices and applying our own personal responsibility during day-to-day life.

Always be responsible and do the right thing, study hard and you will be successful in life. That’s what my mother used to tell us all the time when we were growing up. At first I always use to wonder, why does my mother keep talking to us about the importance of responsibility and education when she never finished school and she never had a career of her own, but once I was older I realized that she didn’t want us to make the same mistakes that she did when she was young. Some of us took her advice seriously but some didn’t.

Personal responsibility means doing the right thing as an individual, it’s something that you can preach and hope that those that listen will follow the advice, but not everyone will. Those words that my mother spoke of, I took to heart and made the best of it while growing up. At first I did it for my mother who would rejoice every time I accomplished something, and watching her smile, meant the world to me, but now I also do it for myself because the benefits are very rewarding. But not all of my brothers followed in my footsteps.

My older brother did the opposite while growing up. His definition of responsibility was that he could do what ever he wanted regardless of the outcome and who might get hurt. He stole, he ditched school and he would never listen to our mother. He finally dropped out of school during his senior year and moved in with his girlfriend. At that point of his life, he started realizing the importance of responsibility now that he was on his own and had a family that relied on him. Just like my mother, he now preaches to his kids the...