Responsibility's Repercussions by Mary

Responsibility's Repercussions by Mary - October 2013 Scholarship Essay

Responsibility: the word has so many different interpretations, but only one true meaning. Formally, responsibility is defined as “the state of being the person who caused something to happen.” (Merriam-Webster, 2013) However, how many people do you know whom actually refer to that definition when they take responsibility of something? Not many. When a person acts on a decision, they most likely judge whether that action is right or wrong. That is what responsibility means to me. If a person makes a decision based on the judgment of its morality, then they are taking responsibility. Nonetheless, learning responsibility is a difficult feat, especially when it hasn’t been a value that has been drilled into a person when they were young. In most cases, responsibility is learned through trial and error, and that is how I learned responsibility. By breaking a rule that had been set by my parents, I learned how important taking responsibility for my actions was.
The day I turned 16, my parents were gracious enough to provide me with a gorgeous, black Saturn Ion. It was a manual, and in order to drive it, I had to learn how and when to shift properly. To me, that car was just as beautiful as a brand new Jaguar or Bentley, and I learned how to drive it in less than a week. I took the car everywhere I could, depending on how much gas I was allowed, of course. No one could pry me from its steering wheel.
One weekend, I was invited to a birthday party for a friend, and my parents allowed me to go on the condition that I got home at exactly ten o’clock. That was the legal curfew, and the curfew my parents had adopted for their rules. I was a little upset about its earliness, but I figured that it was most likely the best option I was going to get. So I agreed, and I left, waving good-bye out the rearview mirror. I arrived at the party at 4 o’clock and had a great time with my friends. I has so much fun, in fact, that when I looked at the clock, it read a quarter past ten. My stomach dropped to my feet. I was going to be in an unbelievable amount of trouble.
My thoughts were confirmed when I stepped through the doorway of my house at half past ten. My dad took one look at me and said, “You just lost your car for a week.” I protested of course, being, at the time, only a 16 year old girl, but my protests did not reach my dad’s ears. He turned around and went into his bedroom, leaving me moping in the living room. I ruminated on those events for a while in my room that night, thinking how unfair it was that I had lost my car for a whole week just because I was a half hour late for curfew. But as I sat there, I began piecing together my dad’s reasoning: he was teaching me a lesson.
It finally dawned on me that it wasn’t because I was just a half hour late that I was being punished, it was the fact that I was late at all. What if that had been a job interview, or a business meeting that I was supposed to attend? The consequences would have been much greater. My dad was trying to show me, through his punishment, that I needed to take responsibility for my time management. It was hard to wrap my head around at the time, but now, as I look back on the moment, I am thankful for that life lesson. Responsibility is such an important value in life; without it, there would be no one to rely on. Now, I know that when I choose to make a decision or even to not make a decision, I need to fully understand how the outcome may occur, and how that outcome may influence myself and others around me.

"Responsibility." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2013. .