“I put The Self Empowerment Pledge to the left of my computer screen and even shrunk the sheet to day-timer size, dated it, laminated it, and carry it in my briefcase. All this was just 2 weeks ago - and I already feel a difference in my thinking. Thanks Joe!”

“I keep a copy of The Self-Empowerment Pledge posted where I can see it every day, and I can’t tell you how helpful it has been to repeat those promises to myself. Things really are getting better.”

“I have The Self-Empowerment Pledge on my overhead cabinet at the office and I’m finding it’s most helpful for me to repeat the daily message.”

The Self-Empowerment Pledge

Seven Simple Promises that Will Change Your Life

Monday’s Promise: Responsibility
by Joe Tye

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. The questions that follow, however, are very real – and answering them honestly can help you internalize the true meaning and purpose of The Responsibility Promise of The Self-Empowerment Pledge.

Click to listen to audio track on Monday’s Promise

The Responsibility Promise: I will take complete responsibility for my health, my happiness, my success, and my life, and I will not blame others for my problems or predicaments.

A DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS. A butterfly on the windshield. The metaphors flashed through Keith’s mind as he trudged into the grey mist. He had no idea where he was going, but wherever it was, he knew it was a place he never thought he’d be, and he was in no hurry to get there.

It was all Slater’s fault, really. Everything had been fine until the company hired Slater to manage the marketing department where Keith put in his time. Keith had never had a problem with a boss before. At least not like the problems he’d had with Slater. The man was insufferable, always demanding, never appreciating. Keith wouldn’t kowtow, so Slater pink-slipped him. That was 13 months ago.

Of course, the train wreck that was now his life really started when Beverly walked out. Said Keith wasn’t the man she’d married. She just couldn’t seem to grasp what a struggle it was, trying to find a job in this economy. After seven months of pounding the pavement, beating his head against closed doors, who could blame him for being discouraged and depressed? Who wouldn’t have had trouble just getting out of bed after so many rejections?

The latest villain in Keith’s story was Charley’s wife, Chris. Keith had moved in with his cousin Charley after the separation. But Chris kept harping and nagging, and finally Charley asked Keith to find other accommodations.

“Yeah, right,” Keith muttered, pulling his collar up against the wind. “Like they’re going to put me up at the Ritz.” He’d found a room at the Y, but this morning even they had asked him to leave for not paying his bill. “Pay it with what,” he snorted. Today, finally, Keith was officially homeless. He muttered a string of obscenities directed at the various culprits who had conspired to push him rung by rung down the ladder of life.

Keith slogged along 13 th street, parallel to the railroad tracks running past the edge of town. The mist was becoming a drizzle. He couldn’t stand the thought of tapping on the door of some church or soup kitchen pleading for a place to stay tonight. “I’d rather die,” he muttered, feeling like before the night was over he just might.

As the drizzle intensified into an honest-to-goodness rainstorm, Keith slid down the dirt embankment of the bridge where 13 th street passed over the railroad tracks, long-since abandoned. Keith thought of the engineers and conductors of an earlier generation who’d been thrown out of work in their turn. Well, at least those ancient tragedies meant that on this night the noise of passing trains wouldn’t violate whatever sleep he could squeeze from out of this dank place.

Keith felt his way with his feet as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, thankful to be out from what was quickly becoming a real downpour. His foot bumped into something solid, but not too solid, like an old tire or a bale of wet newspapers. He gave the object a shove with his toe.

“Am I in your way or something?” The gravely voice was deep and menacing. Keith jumped back a step and raised his fists in front of his face. “What the…” His eyes adjusting, Keith made out a figure sitting on the ground, leaned up against the wall. Keith lowered his guard. “What are you doing down here?”

“Well, now,” the man replied with a rasping laugh, “I was hoping maybe you’d tell me that. Maybe waiting for you.”

As Keith’s eyes adjusted, the man continued to materialize in the vague glow from the streetlights above. He was bundled in an old Army parka, and had one elbow leaned on a battered duffle bag. There was an open book sitting in his lap, a Bible by the looks of it.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Keith said, not wanting the old man to know that he’d been the more frightened of the two.”

The old man laughed again. “I don’t scare easy, sonny, not anymore.” He motioned for Keith to sit on his duffle bag. “Go ahead, there ain’t no needles or broken bottles in it.”

Keith ran a hand across the duffle bag, then gingerly took a seat and looked more closely at this man he’d be spending the night with. He clearly was old, with a face like an ancient cratered battlefield that nature was trying to reclaim with a full growth of whiskers.

The old man scratched his cheek, then brushed a scraggly shot of grey hair off his forehead. “You asked me what I’m doing down here. I’m down here ‘cuz I choose to be down here – same as you.”

“I didn’t choose to be down here.”

“’Course you did,” the old man replied. “You been choosing for a long time to end up down here.”

“You’re crazy,” Keith retorted, “If I could choose, I’d be at the Hilton, in the presidential suite. I’m here because I lost my job, and then I lost my house.”

“And your self-respect along with ‘em, it appears.”

Keith put on a look of mock incredulity. “Well, now, just look who’s talking about losing self-respect.”

“I got my self-respect, ‘cuz I own it. I’m not blaming no one else for putting me under this bridge, the way you are.” A crack of lightning painted the crevices of the old man’s face with eerie shadows as thunder echoed through their little space under the bridge. “You can’t lose what you don’t own.”

You can’t lose what you don’t own. When things break, owners fix them instead of blaming someone else for breaking them.

Keith shook his head. “What do you mean, you can’t lose what you don’t own?”

“I’m talking about real ownership, sonny, not just some slip of paper that says you paid for something. When things break, owners fix them instead of blaming someone else for breaking them, the way you been doing.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Despite the pouring rain, Keith was contemplating moving on to the next bridge. This crazy old man was beginning to spook him.

“Oh yes I do.” The old man pointed a bent finger. “You’re blaming all those other people for your problems. Your boss, your wife, your cousin, why heck, even your cousin’s wife.”

“How do you know about them?” Keith asked, now thoroughly alarmed.

“Maybe cuz I’ve been down here waiting for you.” The old man leaned back and crossed his arms.

Keith put his hands on his knees and was about to stand up to leave, but the old man motioned for him to stay. “Maybe I’m here ‘cuz I’m meant to be here, just like you’re meant to be here. Maybe you chose to be here tonight ‘cuz I got something you need.”

Taking a deep breath, Keith put his hands back into the warmth of his coat pockets. There was something oddly familiar, something strangely comforting about this old man. “So how do you know these things about me, anyway?”

“It don’t matter,” replied the old man. “Lucky guess, maybe.” The old man pulled an apple and a battered pocketknife from his coat pocket, cut the apple in two, and gave half to Keith. Then he continued. “Renters don’t fix things up, they don’t add on, cuz they think that’s all the landlord’s job. Renters is always waiting for the landlord to fix their problems, always blaming the landlord when their problems don’t get fixed.”

The old man closed his eyes and savored a bite of his apple, then said, “Life is problems, but you don’t own none of yours. It’s your landlord boss, your landlord wife, your landlord cousin, your landlord the bank. You let all of them landlords own your problems, so they own your life. You’re just renting it back from them.”

“I own my life, and nobody else can tell me what to do with it.”

“Is that why you decided to be spending the night under this dirty wet bridge with a crazy old man?”

“I didn’t decide to be under this bridge. I didn’t have anywhere else...” Keith sensed that he was about to talk himself into a corner, so he shut up and just glared out at the rain.

The old man tapped Keith gently on the knee. “Don’t take it personal. I been there too, choosing to be somewhere I really didn’t want to be. But now you got to choose to be somewhere else.” He pulled the cardboard bookmarker from his book and looked at it, then said, “it’s hard work, being the owner of your life, maybe the hardest work you’ll ever do, ‘cuz it means changing just about everything. How you look at the world, how you look at other people, and most important, what you see when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror.” The old man looked around and chuckled. “Assuming you wake up in a place that’s got a mirror!”

It’s hard work, being the owner of your life, maybe the hardest work you’ll ever do, ‘cuz it means changing just about everything. How you look at the world, how you look at other people, and most important, what you see when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror.”

Keith laughed, too, despite the sinking feeling that it might be a while before he again woke up in a place that had a bathroom mirror.

“I was wondering if you could still laugh,” the old man said. “Lots of times renters, they forget how to laugh, and that’s one thing you don’t never want to lose.” The old man’s smile revealed that he’d lost ownership of most of his teeth. “But here’s the thing,” he continued. “If you do that hard work of owning your problems, your life will get a whole lot easier.”

“How so?”

“Pay attention to what I said, and what I didn’t say. I didn’t say your problems would get any easier, ‘cuz they won’t. I said that your life would get easier. Landlords work a lot harder than renters do, but they got easier lives.”

Keith smiled at the paradox, and decided to humor the old man. “So what do I have to do, if I want to be the landlord of my own life?”

When you take responsibility for ownership, your problems get tougher but your life gets easier.

The old man reflected upon his bookmarker for a moment, then said: “You got to take The Responsibility Promise.”

“The Responsibility Promise?”

“Yep. Like the good book says, the Lord helps them what helps themselves, and the first step to helping yourself is owning your problems, not giving them to someone else.”

Keith looked at the book in the old man’s lap and saw that it was indeed a Bible. The old man handed his bookmarker to Keith. “Read this. Read it right now. Read it out loud. Read it like you really mean it. Then keep it in your shirt pocket, right next to your heart.”

Keith took the card from the old man as if he’d just been handed a baby bird. In the dim light of the overpass, it took a moment for the letters to come into focus. He read the promise to himself first, then he read it out loud. Sensing that the old man was dissatisfied with his performance, Keith read it again, this time with intensity.

The Responsibility Promise: I will take complete responsibility for my health, my happiness, my success, and my life, and I will not blame others for my problems or predicaments.

“That’s ownership,” said the old man. “If you really make that promise a part of your life, you’ll never be just a renter.”

Keith read the promise again, silently to himself. Simple, but not easy. Now there was the understatement of eternity. “Are there any more promises?”

“There’s seven of ‘em in all.”

“So, where do I find the other six?”

“You don’t find them, they find you. First you take ownership for your problems, then the other promises will find you.”

Both men retreated into their own thoughts for a while, the old man reading his Bible and Keith looking out at the rain. Finally, Keith asked, “So, you got a name?”

“Well, I suppose I do, but now I just mostly go by what people think when they see me.”

“And what’s that?”

The old man smiled. “I don’t need to tell you that, now, do I?”

“No, I suppose you don’t. So, you got any more words of advice before I conk out, crazy old man?”

“Yeah, I got three of ‘em. Expect a miracle.”

“Expect a miracle?”

“Yep. Right now you’re so far down that it’s gonna take a miracle to get you back up. So you expect a miracle. Just don’t give God a deadline.”

Expect a miracle – but don’t give God a deadline

It’s going to be the hardest work you ever do. It’s going to take a miracle. Keith felt suddenly more tired than he’d ever been; all he wanted to do was sleep and sleep some more. He watched from beneath sagging eyelids as the crazy old man read his Bible. Every now and then, he’d close the book and repeat a phrase: “All things are possible for him who believes.” Then he’d reopen the book, seemingly to a random page, read for a bit, then share another gem of wisdom with the hollow darkness: “And the master rebuked the lazy servant for burying his talent in the ground; who would put a basket over a candle so that none could see his light?”

What kind of a crazy old man sits under a bridge reading the Bible and talking to the cold night air? Keith desperately wanted to know more about this ancient stranger who somehow knew so much about him, but he was losing the fight with sleep. He drifted down into the darkness. His other body, the body belonging to the world of dreams, was stretched out on the ground. There was a commotion all about him, and Keith could sense hundreds of tiny people rushing about. He tried to raise himself up to see but found that, like Gulliver in Lilliput, he was bound and pegged to the earth. Except in this dream, the Lilliputian ropes were invisible.

A line long-forgotten echoed through his dream, one that he’d memorized for a high school English class. It seemed as though Jonathan Swift had written that line, almost three hundred years earlier, as a warning for someone almost three centuries away from being born: “Treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt acts.”

Keith awoke with a start. The old man was gone and the rain had stopped. The dream was still fresh in his conscious mind, and there was no doubt as to its meaning.

In his heart, Keith had long-ago betrayed his dreams. He’d been tied down by the invisible ropes of imaginary little people – all those landlords to whom he’d given ownership of his problems, and of his life. He’d buried his talent, been a candle sputtering under a basket. And now, shivering under that bridge, the treason of his heart was being acted out in the misery of his life.

He again read The Responsibility Promise, and this time he meant it. From now on, Keith promised himself, he would take ownership for his problems and reclaim his life. He would swallow his pride and ask for help when he needed it. And he would start walking through life with his eyes open, watching for the other promises that he was now sure were looking for him.

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Questions and Exercises

Are you an owner of your problems, or are you just a renter – blaming others and waiting for someone else (a landlord) to fix them for you. Be honest – you can only cheat yourself by rationalizing away your own victim thinking.

What would the crazy old man of this story have to say to you, were you to meet him this evening?

Read The Responsibility Promise again. How different would your life be today if in the past you had really believed that you would take responsibility for your life and not blame others for your difficulties?

Think about the path that your life is taking right now. What sort of changes would there be in your journey if, beginning right now, you truly internalized The Responsibility Promise – from today onward, you would own your problems, and your opportunities?

If you are a parent, are your children learning and living by the precepts of The Responsibility Promise? What steps could you take to help them grow up to be owners, not just renters, of the problems and the opportunities that life will throw their way?

Think about the paradox that when you internalize The Responsibility Promise, your problems get harder but your life gets easier. What do you make of that, and how might it apply to your life?

Do you agree that the root of self-respect is taking ownership for your problems and your life, and refusing to blame other people? If so, how solid is your own self-respect?

The Responsibility Promise makes a distinction between problems and predicaments. A problem can be solved, a predicament cannot be. An alcoholic neighbor is a problem; an alcoholic mother-in-law is a predicament. This brings to mind the well-known Serenity Prayer – to have the courage to change what you can, the serenity to accept what you cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. How could keeping The Responsibility Promise help you cultivate greater courage, serenity, and wisdom?

What is one specific action you will take within the next 24 hours to stop being a renter and to become an owner of your life – problems, predicaments, and all?

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