Being responsible. Most people at one time or another, has had someone highlight the importance of being responsible. Usually it’s parents but it can also be other relatives, co-workers, friends or even supervisors. The real question is, are  responsible always the right thing to do? In today’s rapidly changing business climate, one is forced to think carefully before doing the responsible thing.

For example, if you were a stockbroker, and you knew your best customer would lose $100,000 the next day because they chose to invest in the wrong stock, would you tell them? Telling them would be the responsible thing to do, but if you did, you would be guilty of insider trading. Another example is if you were supervising a construction project and found to keep on schedule, some of the workers weren’t following safety procedures, what would you do? The responsible thing would be to kick them off the job, but if you did, the delay in the project would cost the company thousand of dollars for each day past the deadline.

One could argue there are no shortcuts in life, and the most important thing is to be responsible. That was probably true in a perfect work, but unfortunately, no one don’t live in a perfect world and being responsible is a constant trade off against doing things faster, incurring lower costs, complying with the law, and keeping from hurting peoples’ feelings. For many adults, this is a daily routine to decide whether one should do the responsible thing or not.

Do this mean young people should be raised with no sense of responsibility? No, because this will affect their moral values later in life. It’s one thing to be irresponsible and feel bad about the choices you’ve made versus being negligent and not worrying about it at all. Unfortunately, with many parents not following up on their responsibility of raising model men and women, the young folks tend to be very self-centered and in many cases, lacking morals.

Learning that being responsible is overrated is something should be a self- realization experience rather than something is taught to young people. It would be great if everyone was accountable for their actions at all times but in the current times, this may not be possible or the realistic thing to do.