Halim Naeem.com

Fear and Responsibility

The way that we handle fear and responsibility are vital to our journey to the completion of our manhood. Both fear and responsibility are present inside all of us men, but what separates men from boys is how we deal with fear and how we handle our responsibility. I am defining fear as a chronic and potentially crippling avoidance to engage in someone or something. Merriam-Webster Online defines fear as an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. I define fear as something different than being scared. Being scared can most certainly become a function or manifestation of fear, but it can also be something temporary.

For example, I am scared of mice and bees (just do not like them). However, a fear of mine as in most men is being seen as weak and vulnerable while letting the blessing of God escape my life. The emotion I feel towards bees and mice are temporary and only there when I see them, however the fear is always there constantly and incessantly.

Responsibility is something tangible or intangible (like thoughts, relationships, ideas, promises, etc.) that we are accountable for. Whether or not an error or a mistake happened directly or indirectly because of what we men did, if that thing was under the realm of our responsibility, then we are held accountable. That is the price we pay for having the power and the influence in the world that we do. We are simply responsible for things that are under our realm of responsibility. This goes for leadership within the home, outside the home, in other institutions, and most importantly, within ourselves. Connecting this to the Male Development Model, if we are not responsible for our own principles in our first stage towards achieving completion of manhood, then we will never get past that stage. I am talking about fear and responsibility because something happened to me lately that connected these two elements.

Recently I had a situation where I had a few options for a new job. The first job to accept me was closest to my passion of working with kids and having a great time being youthful. This job however, was the shortest term and the lowest paying in comparison the other jobs. I am very passionate about the other job options but this one was very special, it was also offered to me by someone I respect very much. I did however decide to leave the first option as I was starting as I was looking for more financial stability.

The way that I declined the first offer was not the best or timeliest manner. I had an oversight and completely forgot about and missed a training for the first offer. Furthermore, my oversight and lack of timeliness to make a decision to decline hampered some of their funding as they had already invested in me for further training. The other options were coming in as the first job had begun. Those other options offered more pay and longer terms. The key to this story was that I did not say I was looking for other options to the first job until I was pretty sure I had the other options solidified. This omission of information in conjunction with a missed training left a bad impression on the first option. The main thing is I felt really bad (and still do) as I believe I lost the respect of someone I respect highly. The question is why did I do this?

The answer is that I had a fear. I feared I would not have a way of providing for my family if I told them I was looking around at other options and they perhaps would let me go. So I said nothing until I thought the other jobs were solidified. That is what was going on in my head, and fear can make you do some irrational things. The responsibility comes in with the position I had accepted and the word that I gave when I accepted their offer. Now that I have since declined, the backlash essentially is that I must reimburse the money that was already spent on me as it is public grant money and they are working on a very tight budget. I will gladly do so and pay back each penny invested. I would also like to volunteer and help those kids through my other connections. This is not about looking good online or saying the right things that will make people clap inside of their hearts. This is about responsibility. When you make a mistake, small or big, it is the owning up to the accountability and the consequences that come afterwards.

Responsibility is not being perfect; it is how you handle yourself and other people when things are not perfect. I definitely have some things to work on in my journey towards the completion of manhood, and one of those things is how to act when I am wrong. Most men and people in general know how to act when they are right and something goes their way. The issue comes in when people are wrong, incorrect, and mistaken. This is where fear and responsibility come in as many men have a fear of being wrong and having a weakness attributed to the mistake at hand. The strength in actuality comes in when a man can take responsibility in being right and in being wrong.

How do we handle when we are right? How do we make other people feel? Usually, most of us rub it in their faces and reinforce their fear of being wrong around us. So then it stops being about the pursuit of betterment and manhood and starts being more about our vain desires to accumulate as many “correct points” as possible to validate our distance from our fear and insecurity of being wrong.

We need to handle being correct with respect and our positive principles, no matter how passionate the argument was before the verdict. We need to put an end to people’s fears of being wrong around us and we need to stand up to our responsibilities and not let our fear evacuate us from what we are accountable over. When we can handle both our fears and responsibilities like Men, then we are that much closer to achieving our completion of Manhood.

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