One of the ultimate goals of every child or teenager is to be a grown-up. The pleasure of being in charge of your life and of making your own decisions seems like the perfect solution to everyone else telling you what to do.
Truly becoming an adult, however, comes with a hidden, but important price. The price of becoming an adult is to recognize and accept the responsibility and be accountable for your choices and actions.
Unfortunately, the example most often seen in modern society is to always shirk responsibility and find others to blame for your circumstances.
Katharine Hepburn long ago recognized this tendency in today's society. In her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life, she laments, "We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers, but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you're the one that's got to change."
Being accountable to others is a normal thing in everyday life. Employees are held accountable by their bosses, children are held accountable by their parents, and students are held accountable by their teachers.
Being accountable to yourself and for your own actions, however, seems to be lacking in much of today's society.
Too often we make a mistake and immediately begin to rationalize the pending consequences by blaming others or running back to our parents to ask them to fix it for us.
Do not blame the policeman that tickets you or blame the Professor for a poor grade or blame your roommate for the messy kitchen.
Okay, that last one may actually be your roommate's fault.
A true responsible adult accepts accountability and devises a plan to correct or mitigate the consequences.
Asking for help is not a bad thing, but it should not be the first thing that happens right after you try to blame others.
I want to know when people stopped being accountable for their own problems and when they started blaming everyone else for their problems.
I am guilty of it as much as anyone. When something goes awry, my kneejerk reaction is always to say it isn't my fault.
This epidemic of playing the blame game when something doesn't work out isn't only found in our generation.
Politics, for example is one great example of people arguing and blaming others for reasons something isn't working or laws aren't being passed.
However, we need to start correcting this trait in an effort to eradicate it. If mommy or daddy still calls from home to fix your mistakes at Auburn, you need to grow up and pronto.
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