PROGRESSION OF RESPONSIBILITY

There is a natural progression of responsibility. First we must define responsibility. Responsibility means to take control of your own and later the actions of those you have power or control over, and to take the reward or punishment for those actions. Being irresponsible is not being willing to take the blame and consequences for actions which were not fully understood, and thus the consequences were both unacceptable and unexpected.

Thus responsibility requires that we predict future events, and assume the consequences for the actions we choose from out mental picture, we are able to construct in our minds an adequately accurate picture of what will happen given assumed circumstances, and to select those we want, and reject taking those actions which we do not want. Responsibility also requires that we be able to examine sufficient numbers of alternative to get one set that is "good enough" - one alternative that is within reason for the consequences we seek.  Thus responsibility requires that we use imagination and even creativity to make projection for actions which are outside f the common patterns which we all use. Responsibility requires that we know all or most of the basic common patterns also. Thus experience and observation - either first hand or via observation of others- either in history or in fiction -mare part of becoming more and more responsible. Responsibility also must track maturity, but a person may age and start planning for longer and longer into the future (maturity) without responsibility in that the attempted time span under consideration is different from the accuracy of the predictions which is involved in responsibility

   insert table (under construction)                                                                 

see Maturity also