It is certainly easier to look at the troubles in the world and feel sad, or guilty, or angry, or even despairing than it is to feel responsible. When something happens, small or large, close to us or far, we wonder why “they” don’t do something about it. We are upset that such things are allowed to continue – that “someone” doesn’t do something.

Outside of our professional life (where duties and responsibilities might be captured neatly in a position description), notions of responsibility can be foggy, particularly when it comes to responsibility connected to local, national and global communities.

I recall as a child my mother telling me to eat my dinner because there were children starving in some other corner of the world. Back then I wondered how my eating my dinner helped a child elsewhere. Now I know that it was likely that there were children going to bed hungry within driving distance of my childhood home. Now I wonder about the notion of responsibility – not as it relates to hand wringing and regret but rather how it relates to choice and acts – to what we choose to do and to the world we choose to create, individually and collectively. Do we build walls or doors? Do we divide or unite? Do we make choices based more on care than fear? What is it that is said about who qualifies as our neighbor? No, it doesn’t take much reflection to realize that responsibility is… well, a very big responsibility.

Yet, in a world with too little kindness, each act of kindness shifts the balance and ripples out into other lives. In a world where it is easier to blame than to risk trying, attempting to make a positive difference can be a profound act of hope and love – even if we judge our positive difference to be small in the face of large challenges.

Responsibility also extends to ideas – responsibility for the power of ideas, both in positing and supporting those that might make one’s self and others wiser and more caring, and opposing those ideas that push in the other direction.