Making someone else shoulder the burden

I think I'm beginning to understand the issue that so many people deal with today in their relationships that is the source of so much conflict.

Everyone wants someone else to shoulder the burden.

Or when they shoulder the burden, they want control over others that they just can't have and that produces resentment among those they work with.

And there is no other way out of that situation but with everyone learning to shoulder the burden, and respecting, better, the freedom of others as they do not.

There are consequences for not shouldering the burdens of life that we face together. And there are consequences for trying for force people to shoulder those burdens. Neither sorts of consequences are the ones that the people involve intend. People who avoid shouldering the burdens deal with a life more burdened by the consequences of their neglegence. And those who try to control others deal with the way that this undermines peoples' trust in their leadership.

It's a hard lesson to learn, I understand.

But the only way to a world where everyone takes more responsibility for themselves and their behavior is one that respects peoples' freedom to screw up, in all of these ways. Until they can figure out for themselves just how little either route works.

Humanity perpetually comes back to the worn out, unproductive, regressive and repressive principle that people must be controlled or hurt or punished or otherwise forced to do what is best for them.

And it perpetually fails. Every single generation that it is revamped.

And it will continue to fail, until we face up to the failure.

And that is one reality that we can never force out of existence.

Learning is the only route that creates serious progress for humanity. Learning takes time and patience. And freedom. And there is no way to force it differently.

Love,
Ben