Hi there friends, Julie Cross here. Just wanted to have a quick chat today about taking responsibility. It’s one of the things I talk about in my shows and particularly with Building Resilience; it’s something that we talk about a little bit there as well. Because in the end, I think that we’ve forgotten about personal responsibility.
Now I agree with making other people accountable, other organizations accountable, governments accountable; they have got an obligation to look after the people. Organizations have got an obligation too, to do the right thing with their advertising, et cetera. Big focus last week on the news about food companies, and about their advertising to children, things Coco Pops, Froot Loops, and the way that they advertise, you know, convincing children that these are good foods when we know that they really aren’t healthy for our kids, they’re full of sugar, et cetera.
So here’s my issue with that: I agree that the organizations, the companies, have to take some responsibility. I agree that the government needs to take some responsibility making sure food companies label properly, et cetera, so that we know what’s in foods and so that we can make an educated choice. I agree with all that but in the end there’s still got to be some personal responsibility from the people, the individuals, us.
At some point there has to be. Because, you know, in the end, five-year-olds don’t go grocery shopping and get the weekly groceries, do they? Or am I missing something? You know, do five-year-olds go and make the decisions, grab what they want off the shelves to put in our cupboards for the children to eat? Or that the adults making the decision? Would that be my responsibility as a parent to say no, because you see I’m educated enough to know that Coco Pops and Froot Loops aren’t the best and healthiest breakfast cereal? So as a parent I can then make a decision not to buy the Froot Loops.
Now I know that might mean that you have a tantrum because the companies use little monkeys jumping around on TV to hypnotize our children into buying Coco Pops. And so I understand that you now might have a tantrum with the child saying, “No but Mommy I want Coco Pops “and I’m going to throw a big whiny tantrum “in the supermarket until you get it,” but then our responsibility as adults is still to say no we’re not getting the Coco Pops. And so when the child’s having the big tantrum, we deal with that.
And if people are coming and wandering by, I mean, I don’t know, just look at them and say, “We’re just doing a resilience building exercise here. “Nothing to see, move along.” And in the end we say no to the Coco Pops, because we make the decision as adults what we’re going to have in our cupboard. And maybe eventually if we all make those decisions, then they don’t make Coco Pops anymore because no one’s buying the things, right?
You know what I mean? So I just get a little frustrated that nobody talks about the personal responsibility, that we talk about the responsibility of everyone else out there but we forget that we have the responsibility as well. And I get a little tired of keep hearing that thing where they say we need more education on it. You know, at what point do we stop saying we’ve actually educated everyone enough, now we need more personal responsibility on it? Because I think we’ve all been educated enough to know exercise is good for us.
I mean, are you waiting for the next big research project where the government spends a million dollars to discover that exercise is good for us, because I haven’t got enough data on that yet; I need more information. Or is it that we know exercise is good for us, but we just didn’t take the personal responsibility to do the exercise or to eat the healthy food? Most of us know don’t we that salad, lettuce, is better for us than McDonald’s, you know, a burger. I think most of of us know that. And so we’ve been educated on it; now it’s time for personal responsibility.
Anyway, so that’s just kind of a little thought that yes these organizations need to be held accountable and we need to do that, but then we also need to go down into the layers a little bit and say well as an individual I’ve still got choices, and I have the power to exercise my choices and the right to make decisions that are best for me and for my family.
So anyway, that’s just my thoughts on that. I’m sure you’ve got some thoughts on it too, and that some people will disagree with my thoughts on that, and that is fine too; we’re allowed to do that.
So thanks for listening, see ya!