Moving into the Driver's Seat: Radical Responsibility

In our philosophy club conversation last week, just after Myles expressed his new access to choice in the face of a constraining emotion, another student shared his opinion: “I disagree. I don’t think we can control our emotions.”

I told him that I didn’t mean to imply that we can control our immediate emotions; I don’t actually think we can control them. But I do think we absolutely have a choice in how we respond to our emotions - and to me, this is freedom.

In To Live in This Moment, Unconstrained, I wrote about an activity that I completed as part of a workshop 16 years ago. Through that exercise, I stepped into a new space in life that a friend named radical responsibility.

Responsibility can feel heavy. It can suggest obligation, expectation, work, and seriousness. But in the context of radical responsibility, the word takes on a new meaning for me: the capacity to respond without constraint.

As we live our lives, we think we’re experiencing raw reality. However, we do not perceive reality as it is; we perceive reality that’s been filtered through our thinking. Even our emotions typically arise as a result of our thinking. This veiled experience, so subtly filtered through judgments, beliefs, and memories, feels like “the way things really are.” But it’s not.

Responsibility is NOT about controlling triggered emotions or thoughts that arise to filter our perspective; that may in fact not be possible. Rather, responsibility is being aware, creative, and at choice in how we respond to these emotions and thoughts that inevitably arise in our experience.

Radical responsibility is taking the perspective that at our core we are unbreakable, untarnishable, and whole, and while stuff happens around me and to me, my well-being needn’t be at the effect of any of it. It’s on me to shift my thinking, to transform my emotions, and to take actions consistent with my well-being. No one else can do that for me.

Radical responsibility begins by being willing - willing to take ownership of my experience, willing to take ownership of what happens next. Radical responsibility isn't necessarily the truth, but it is a place to come from and a lens to look through.

It might sound daunting or disconcerting, but it’s actually profoundly liberating. Radical responsibility is moving from the passenger seat into the driver’s seat of our experience.

Quick tip - if you’re having a passenger seat experience that you’d rather not have and you’re interested in moving into the driver’s seat, ask yourself the question that always delivers: what am I avoiding being responsible for?

Thanks for hanging with me through this post. I hope you have a great day. ❤️

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Strong Suits Have Drawbacks. That's Okay.

During our earlier lunch conversation, his eyes got a little red and he excused himself for a few minutes. Because he might have been upset, I checked in with Myles (not his real name) the next morning. He said that his emotions were a bit wired that day from having coffee in the morning, but that he wasn’t upset. He said he was actually pretty happy - he saw something about his life he’d never seen before.

An advisee of mine and I started a weekly philosophy club at school to give students an opportunity to explore the nature of their experience of life. (She’s now graduating, but the club lives on.) In this week’s club meeting, one of the students suggested that we talk about free will.

At one point, Myles shared that he doesn’t believe we have free will, but he wished we did. He said that he feels a lot of compassion and empathy for others, but he finds himself doing things that he doesn’t really want to do in order to satisfy the compulsion of his empathy.

We asked him how having free will would change that experience for him: “If I had free will, I would still feel empathy and compassion, but I wouldn’t have to always act on them. I’d have a choice in how I act.”

So I looked him in the eyes and asked: “But Myles, don’t you already have that choice?”

He thought for a long moment. Then, “Yes,” he said, “but it’s really hard sometimes. But yes, I do have a choice.” Soon after that, his eyes got a little red.

Our strong suits and the emotions that come with them are such a positive force in our lives. They often feel good, they often produce good results, and we identify and define ourselves by our strong suits.

But our strong suits and their emotions can also be limitations. Myles, a 17-year-old, saw this and then had an even deeper insight into his fundamental nature: we have a choice in how we respond to the compulsions of our strong suits and emotions. I find this insight profound.

It usually doesn’t feel like we’ve got a choice, but we do. By widening the gap between stimulus and response, we find freedom to choose. By giving ourselves an action-less moment to just feel through our initial emotional and thought responses, we reawaken our capacity to respond without constraint, our response-ability. By listening for a moment to a quieter part of ourselves, we can actually hear our true self whispering through.

Yes, it can be really tough at times to act against the pressure of our strong suits and emotions, but it honors ourselves and others much more when we act authentically and with integrity.

It turns out that Myles was moved in our conversation by an insight into his fundamental nature. All it took was his willingness to reconsider what he had thought and felt was true, to honestly and calmly look at his own experience.

For me, moments of insight are usually blissful experiences. Sometimes, though, insight is followed by an “Oh crap” moment as I realize that this new power brings with it new responsibility.

Thanks so much for reading. ❤️

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What Else?

When I first started teaching engineering design, I adopted a design process that required students to come up with three different possible solutions to any design challenge we worked on - but wasn’t one enough? Over the years, it became strikingly clear why the brainstorming process should include multiple options.

We often think of one viable idea, and that idea is obviously the solution we think we should pursue. But our first idea isn’t always the best, our first thought is nearly never the extent of our thinking, and our first judgment isn’t typically the most accurate.

We get hooked on our first idea and want to just get in action or move on. It’s actually a little intellectually lazy - avoiding the effort to come up with alternative options or thoughts - and, at times, it can be a bit harmful, especially in our relationships.

What do you like? What are you committed to? What’s the next task to accomplish? What type of family culture do you want to build? What would be your dream job? What should you have for breakfast? Is this person worthy of your respect? What’s on your mind? Like with our design projects in school, the first answer to any of these questions is just scratching the surface, and the first answer isn't necessarily the best, most accurate, or even the real answer.

There’s a magical question that I’ve been asking more and more of myself, my students, and my friends, not just in a design project context, but in a broader life context: “What else?” (It’s one of the 7 insight-inducing questions in Michael Stanier’s The Coaching Habit.)

Every time I ask this question of students, I’m shocked that they so easily go into what else is on their mind. It’s like the thoughts and ideas slow to a trickle after a minute of talking, then I ask “what else?” and the valve opens all the way again for more thoughts and ideas to come flowing out.

Why do we do this to ourselves, stop thinking so quickly without digging just a little deeper? We have clearly documented errors in our thinking called cognitive biases that have helped us survive in the wild since the beginning. Each of the biases described in this list of 12 gives a reason for why we are quick to go with our first response.

Our first thought, our first response, our first judgment, our first impression - it’s not likely what’s true for us, others, or the world.

Ask yourself and others the question, “What else?”, and you’ll very quickly realize that the first, typically obvious answer, is not all there is. There’s a lot more juice in that fruit, and it literally only takes a couple moments of a squeeze to get a clearer view of ourselves, others, and the world itself.

What’s on your mind? …What else? ❤️

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