Knocking At Your Door

This past week has been a whirlwind of responsibility for me, thus:

I went alone to the DMV all by myself and I, Ian the Pontificator, registered my car, personally. And got new license plates, on my own initiative and under my own power. (I'm celebrating my individuality.)

Then I took a required training course, mandatory before I begin TAing in fall. It was about FERPA. I got it done well before the deadline.

And over the past week, at my coffee shop, I shouldered a chunk of the burden of work resulting from the owners being on vacation.

All of my life, I've yearned for responsibility, because it denotes respect. If people respect you, they'll rely on you. Right? I want to be relied on; I want to be leaned on; I want the respect implied by responsibility.

What I discovered this week is that responsibility is not a privilege; it is a necessity.

Responsibility, both the act of being responsible and the act of fulfilling the expectations of those who rely upon one, is nothing special. It's part of adult life. Fulfilling expectations is duty, not some sort of special awesome success story yayz. It's what you do. There were no congratulatory parades as I walked out of the DMV with my new license plates, no Extry Bonus Cash for remembering to pay my bills every month. I just do these things, and I continue living without being arrested or fined or pulled over.

In a way, this is disappointing. Responsibility doesn't seem to get me ahead; hard work and reliability just reinforce the status quo. All the swimming in the world won't get me farther upstream.

Well, that's not true. I am certainly farther upstream than I was when I graduated college. Perhaps I should yearn for patience rather than responsibility.

Also, I'm hungry for fish now.

Long live the ramble.