HOW RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE VIEW BIG GOVERNMENT

In NLP we focus on the psychology of personal responsibility when we work with individuals and groups. What personal responsibility means is, first and foremost, that you are response- able for yourself. You and only you have the ability to respond to what happens mentally as you think, emotionally as you feel and value, linguistically as you put your thoughts and feelings into words, and behaviorally as you take actions to manifest your thinking-and-feeling. This is fundamental. It’s fundamental because the ability to respond is the essence of “responsibility.”

Consequently, by learning, accepting, and developing your fundamental powers of thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting, you become increasingly a more responsible person. And as you do, these powers enable you to take the initiative, be proactive, and define yourself as a person who can forge his own destiny. If this seems simple and obvious, then what about all of the millions of people do not do this. They could, but they don’t.

They don’t take initiative, they are not proactive, they don’t think like a person in charge of their own lives. They think, feel, talk, and act as if they were victims. Instead of owning their own powers, they attribute power to other people, to circumstances, to the environment, to government, to parents, to school, to ethnic origin, to a whole range of things outside of themselves. That’s how they infantilize themselves, disempower themselves, and make themselves victims. And to seal this, they don’t even know that at some level, they are choosing to play the victim using their powers to give away their power.

Now in describing personal responsibility, this does not eliminate or disqualify other forms of responsibility, namely, the social responsibilities. We are also responsible to our families, friends, peers, colleagues, etc. Yet there’s a big difference. The first is responsibility for. Each of us is responsible for ourselves. No one can do your thinking, feeling, speaking, or acting. Those are your powers. They give you the ability to respond from out of yourself— your understandings, beliefs, values, etc. You can give this power away; you can play the victim. Yet even when you do, you are the one with the ability to grant someone else the right to tell you what to think, feel, say, and do.

The other kind of responsibility is responsibility to. This is a very different kind of response- ability, it establishes relationship. The persons to whom you are responsible to are the people you are in relationship with. You have the ability to respond to them in terms of what you say to them, how you talk to them, what you do in regard to them, etc.

Responsibility for establishes accountability. In this you give account for yourself. You are responsible for what you think, feel, say, and do. Responsibility to establishes relationship with those with whom you give and receive. There’s an exchange.

Together both forms of responsibility enable a person to become a highly effective and productive person in society. This proactive person has a can-do attitude and takes pleasure in learning, developing, and becoming increasingly competent. This is an empowered person who wants to make her own way in the world and not be the child or puppet of someone else.

So when we ask about a highly responsible person about government, that person will not look to government as a Nanny state, or as a new substitute Mother and Father. That person will not view government as the solution to one’s personal problems. The proactive person does not look to Government for a job, a family, a career, etc. These are things that are up to each person.

The political philosophy of keeping government as small as possible rather than wanting big government starts from the foundation that we are intelligent enough, competent enough, and responsible enough to look after our own affairs. We do not need to “be taken care of.” We do not need Pappa Government to make sure we feel comfortable.

Because NLP encourages self-determination, self-governance, self-monitoring, and self- development, we not only assume that we can take charge of our own lives— we want to! We want to take ownership of our powers and we want to develop them so we can be the best version of ourselves. We delight in experiencing the self-actualizing process of growing up and becoming more mature. So we do not want big government intruding into our lives and taking away choice. That would only serve to keep us in a dependent position.

Here the psychology of NLP leads to a particular political philosophy that fits for the NLP premises. To think otherwise is to either not understand the foundations of the cognitive psychology of NLP or to ignore them. From this perspective, government should be a servant of the people and never the master. Responsible people, wanting government to be as small as possible, will then feel free to be as responsible as possible.