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   %PRINCIPLED LIMITED RESPONSIBILITY RESCUE ADDICT 900409

     It  is important that there be in each community some
reasonably  common understanding of the  limitations  upon
the responsibilities of members of the community.   In the
absence  of  such an understanding there are  some  common
mistakes which are likely to be made.

     Some  people  will  assume/arrogate  responsibilities
which   they  should  not  have,  and they assume/arrogate
corresponding authority and powers.  They become unwelcome
authority figures and in the extreme become dictators.  At
less extreme levels they act as paternalistic managers  of
other people's lives and engender much resentment,  anger,
and  subtle forms of violence.   Such arrogant people  are
commonly not respected.

     Other  people  who  are  respected  may  accept  more
responsibilities  than they can fulfill,  and accept  more
authority  and power than they can handle properly.   They
may not appear to seek such responsibility,  authority and
power; but they nevertheless seem to gather it as a magnet
gathers  iron filings.   They often become the movers  and
shakers of the community,  but are overworked and serve as
examples to others of their own kind of excesses.

     Some parents assume too many responsibilities to care
for,   rescue  and  control  their  children;   having  no
principles by which to recognize the appropriate limits to
their responsibilities.   Their children do not learn  how
to take  care  of themselves, because  their  parents  are
spending all their time taking care, of the children;  and
trying to control their destiny.   The children often  end
up   resenting  the  control  and  care  and  respond   in
rebellious  ways  which involve collusive games of  mutual
manipulation between parents and children.

     In  such settings the next generation as children  do
not   learn  how  to  recognize  appropriate  limits  upon
responsibility;   and they acquire attitudes and habits of
spirit  which  lead them as adults to attempt  to  fulfill
more responsibilities that is humanly possible for them to
fulfill.   They are likely to go to greater extremes  than
did  their parent,  and so reveal the nature of the  seeds
planted by their parents, as mature forms of addiction and
codependence  grow  in their lives,  and in the  lives  of
their children in turn.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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