Monday, September 23, 2013
U-Predict Blog – Personal Responsibility – 09/17/2013
At the core of some of the bitterest debates in society is
the idea of personal responsibility.
Government officials claim that if people were “more responsible” they
would get jobs and quit taking government handouts. Citizens claim that if gun owners would truly
support “personal responsibility”, we could get better gun safety regulations
passed. The old claim the young have no
personal responsibility; the young say that senior citizens didn’t take
personal responsibility for their old age and the young now foot the bill…and
on, and on. In fact, a personal friend
who has connections to the paranormal entertainment industry asked me to do a show
on this topic. Quite frankly, if I had
met him at 25, and he had offered me even an internship to pursue what fascinated
me, along with meeting people who could help me further my career, I would have
cleaned up after zombies. But he says
this is not the case. That alone
intrigued me enough to what to pull cards on this topic.
The Reading Room for this show included Anita Perez, Jean
Maurie Puhlman, Ivy Lieberman, and ReeNee Cummins. We added Energytherapies as a new visitor and
contributor to the show.
We started with the routine questions – parental responsibility
to teach, learned helplessness from reading too many help-yourself books (aka
your life IS screwed up), and even looked at if “teaching to the test” had
caused a decline in learning self-responsibility. What we got was surprising and but thought
provoking from the tarot. The tarot said that self-responsibility was
something that mankind had tried to avoid for thousands of years. When you look at religion stretching back far
into history, you see a pattern of being able to blame an outside entity (like
a devil or evil spirit) for their bad behavior.
We also have the religions who tell the adherents to complete an act or
believe on a person or event in history and they are absolved of their “sins”. Many interpret this as be able to go on their
merry way, behaving as they wish because they are “saved”.
The Reading Room had their own ideas and opinions about what
caused the lack of self-responsibility.
Anita Perez brought up and defended the idea that societal norms were
tightening; this gives people the self-granted right to bully and be bigoted against
those who saw the world differently.
Finally, these folks just give up – go their own way, surviving the best
they could. Ivy Lieberman talked about
the importance of self-esteem – and how it is the gateway to compassion as an
adult. Ivy and Jean Maurie both talked
about how self-esteem allows a person to follow their own path, and not fall
victim to the societal norms we had discussed earlier in the show. Both ReeNee and Energytherapies talked about
the problem of enabling, and how many people did not understand that there is a
huge difference between building self-esteem and just giving in or enabling
someone to make poor decisions about their life.
The Major Arcana cards gave us a picture of the situation as
well as a solution. First card in synchronicity
was the Hermit. Bottom line, we go it
alone. This has been one of the
strongest messages in all our broadcasts – YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. You decide your life, you create your fate,
and in the end, you have to accept the consequences. The next Major in synchronicity was Justice,
but in all cases the pulled card was REVERSED.
Humanity does not want this responsibility. Many do not want to stand for justice, for
the right thing. We would rather
continue along either beating our chests in triumph as we watch our opponents
struggle, or cry piteously that “what we did in a previous life” caused the
misery we face now (forgetting that we dropped out of high-school, cheated on
our spouse which destroyed our family, or abused our bodies to the point of
chronic ill health). And the final major
was the card of Judgment. For the
purpose of this reading, the card should be read literally as in karma will
judge, and in the classical sense of WAKE THE HELL UP – it doesn’t work like
you think it does.
The Minor Arcana gave us a good idea of the dynamic behind
this topic – we had the 5 of Wands and the 5 of Swords. This reflects both the battle between people
willing to help people in need whatever the reason and the 5 of Swords, which
is vanquishing your enemy – making the little people suffer. We had the 2 of Swords which said that
choosing not to help was not a monumental problem (interesting to note that
within days of the show, Pope Francis had told his churches to quit focusing on
politics and going back to helping those in need), and that a solution of
reaching out to those people could be achieved.
We were given an answer in the Minors as well – We had the Queen of
Wands (the sharp idea lady), the King of Cups (the fatherly mentor) the Page of
Wands (an adolescent type who may not realize that there are things to learn)
and the Ace of Wands.
We need new
thinking! There are programs abounding
in the US where people at any age are taught to start over. There are the developers and trainers who get
people thinking; there are loving mentors who take people under their wing and
given them skills. These programs have a
track-record of success. That is where
our focus should be. This is the answer
to the Major Arcana telling us to wake the hell up. The answer is yes, we will help teach these
people instead of letting them flounder.
We will tell them that they are terrific, and we will help them find a
place where their terrific-ness fits in.
The final card was the 10 of Pentacles.
Are we ready to help people find that level of security…U Predict!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
Love this, so clear and understandable :)
Post a Comment