“The character of our being — who we are — enables us to offer our gifts to others in a manner that supports, strengthens, and inspires them to be great in their own right.”
In the midst of the furor of the recent debt debacle and the extended election season, we have experienced a near overload of quotes and sound bytes. One thing that strikes me most about these quotes is the tendency to point to someone else and say they are wrong and it is their fault. As an empowered individual, I am fully and completely accountable to myself for what I believe and stand for. While not totally happy with all that is going on in our political or economic world these days, I am accountable for what I believe, for what I stand for, and my role in contributing to the solution, not simply pointing to the problem.
My accountability as a leader, as a person, and as a member of the human race is to help others discover the solutions to their challenges, to help them remove the obstacles to their success, and empower them to leverage their unique gifts to realize their dreams. I do not have to be right, I do not need to create excuses, and I do not need to knock others down on my journey to success — for I am accountable to everyone for helping, supporting, guiding, and teaching others as we work through our individual issues and challenges.
When look at the messages of today’s leaders in contrast to that of the thoughts of Martin Luther King, Jr. we have a lot to learn. Dr. King passionately and fervently preached and advocated change and fought for the civil rights of the entire human race. His message was one of love, patience, and unity. He didn’t declare war on racists, he didn’t blame the government for the current state of affairs, and he didn’t exclude anyone from his speeches when he shared his vision. As a committed change agent Dr. King leveraged his character to inspire, lead, and stand up to the injustice of racism and discrimination.
What is your character? What do you stand for? What are you doing to use your gifts to unite, guide, and inspire?
Our accountability for our existence is not to judge, divide, or blame. Our role as people in this world is to leverage our greatness to help others discover the greatness in themselves. We are not innocent bystanders, we are not free of our accountability to give to everyone who asks for or needs our help, and we cannot blame anyone for our situation in life. We have the ability to make a difference, one person, one neighborhood, one organization at a time. The challenge is discovering the character that exists within us to do that. And we are responsible for leveraging those gifts — for we all have them — to make the world a little better than how we found it.
