We often talk about our rights - what we are owed - but rarely our responsibilities - what we owe. I would like to talk about our responsibilities.

This is going to be a thread.

The societies we live in exist on many different levels; the immediate, such as our home, families, or friends; our neighbourhoods and the areas we live in and frequent throughout our lives; the towns or cities we might live in; the countries we live in; the planet we live on.

Hopefully in the future that scale will grow further still. Regardless of the scale we’re referring to, our responsibilities remain the same:

Responsibility to Ourselves

We have a responsibility to keep our minds open, sharpened, and informed.

We have a responsibility to always be open to learning new information, to practice our discernment in weeding out misinformation, and to try to stay educated on topics that we wish to have a say in. That is the foundation of a healthy society.

We have a responsibility for our actions and the consequences of them, regardless of our intent or how far removed from a specific consequence we might be.

Responsibility to Each Other

We have a responsibility to ensure that our actions do not harm our fellow humans.

We have a responsibility to work to understand how our actions might impact others, and act in light of that.

We have a responsibility, when listening to others, to work to understand their perspective as they see it. It is only when all parties accept that responsibility that productive dialogue can take place.

We have a responsibility to not try to engage in dialogue if we do not want to listen.

We have a responsibility not to try to act for someone else’s interest if we’re unwilling to engage them in dialogue.

Responsibility to Our Environment

We have a responsibility to our environment, all components of it, and all non-human life that lives in it.

We have a responsibility to wield the power we hold over our ecosystem thoughtfully, intentionally, and with respect to all other life. We exist, inherently and unavoidably, as a component of our ecosystem, and our power to influence it does not remove us from it.

Responsibility to The Future

We have a responsibility to ensure that the future we are creating with our actions is one that can thrive because of them. The only input the future can have as to what it will be is our actions in the present.

We bear no responsibility to the past, although we bear responsibility for the present that the past has created; our responsibilities to each other and to the future can involve making right the mistakes of the past.

That's all I got for now.

If anyone has any thoughts, or other important responsibilities we share that I neglected - please, speak up!