Sunday, December 19, 2010

Feeling responsible, by association!

It happened to me again today. I went shopping and my shopping cart developed a squeal that made heads turn! This has happened to me so many times that sometimes I feel as if there is a conspiracy against me. Anyway, I felt embarrassed and had to change my cart.

So why did I feel embarrassed? The cart belongs to the store, its not my personal driving machine. Everybody knows that I just picked it up as I walked into the store. So is there a reason for me to feel the way I did? Maybe there is. I can only define it as "Responsibility by association." When I picked the cart as I came in, it was mine for the period of time I was in the store. Now extrapolate this to a social situation. If a person starts behaving like a jerk at a party, his or her friends feel embarrassed. In the same token, we feel proud when our friends achieve success. (Well, most people do. Except for the small minority who are always competing with their "friends"!) That's because we assume responsibility of persons associated with us. The closer the association with an individual, the more responsible we feel. So why is that?

Our character is a complex interplay of our mannerisms, our nature and education, among many other things. But it is also affected by our associations. We therefore, cannot afford to be indifferent as to who or what our friends are. Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he hangs out with are.

"A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people!" ~ Will Rogers

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