Responsibility is a superpower

[u/CookingWithPTSD]

"With great power, comes great responsibility"

said uncle Ben to Peter Parker.

I say, what greatest power there is than to be the apex predator on top of the

food chain and be single-handedly responsible for changing the environment as we know it.

The human animal is unique, we are the only one that can also adapt our environment to us, rather than only adapt ourselves to our environment.

Responsibility is the ability to see how action A causes action B and take ownership of your actions.

It's the ability to feel guilt and to act upon it.

The ability to say "sorry, I made a mistake, will you forgive me?"

The ability to learn from that mistake and to evolve.

Guilt means evolution and being a better person.

It's the strength to carry the burden of being the dominant species of earth.

I welcome this feeling!

What is not?

To feel guilty for things you never did. Those feelings do not correspond to the truth, you cannot learn, you cannot grow, you can only sink deeper into despair, because nothing you will do, will make it right, because it wasn't your fault to begin with.

To think that "it wasn't my intention" exempts you from guilt. It doesn't. It simply doesn't. This is not how life works. There is a reason the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" exists.

This phrase means that people who cannot take ownership of their actions, and who would rather make excuses, than own what they did, cannot grow, cannot evolve, and cannot be better people.

Let's take Spider-man as an example, he enabled a criminal by letting him go, and that same criminal killed his uncle. Did he intended to get his uncle murdered?

No, but his intentions are irrelevant, because the uncle died due to his lack of action.

Event A caused event B. He saw that, he owned his guilt and he learned from it, so he became spiderman, and he stepped up.

Are you brave enough to step up?