Accountability Part 2: The Socially Acceptable Hypocrite

I have been having a think about the last (rather heartfelt) post I wrote about accountability, and thought of that saying ‘It’s easier to see a piece of straw in another person’s eye than the great big log in your own eye!’ – not to mention the one about ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’

- as in nobody is perfect so don’t judge… and I so did….

Though I reckon I did pretty much follow through on every thing I ever said I’d do in regards to the young cricketer mentioned in my previous post (and good on me, a smug self-righteous pat pat for that) – maybe I haven’t always been 100 percent impeccably accountable in my whole life.

Come to think of it.

And therefore, I might be (shock, horror!) – a bloody great big hypocrite.

Crikey!
(Fell right off her moral high horse and banged her head, innit?)

Now: have I ever said ‘I’m going to go to the gym today!’ and didn’t?

Yup. (accountability lapse…)

“Okay, only to myself, which I can maybe get away with, cause it didn’t affect anyone else, and nobody noticed…”

But that’s just an excuse.
Cause if I was being 100 percent impeccably accountable…
I would have gone to the gym.
Like I said I would.
And I didn’t.
Sigh…

Have I ever been late in doing something? (um, yup.)

Have I ever said I’d do something and then not been able to, for whatever reason?

Like, ‘I’ll get that to you by Tuesday!’ and then it was Thursday?

Have I ever said I’d pitch for a job and then not bothered to do the pitch?

Yup.

So accountability is doubly hard, because not only do you have to do what you said you’d do, but if you are being 100 percent impeccable, you also have to do it in the time-frame you said you’d do it in.

Like: on Tuesday, let’s say you say yes to doing a pitch for a job on spec, cause you have some time on Wednesday – but then on Wednesday a paying job comes in with a deadline, and you of course take the paid job over the pitch which you have to do on spec; and so you don’t end up doing the pitch, because you decide that the pitch isn’t as important now, as you have paying work. – Bird in the hand, and all that.

So: I supposed I am also as guilty as anyone else about re-prioritising ‘my shit’ as more important than what i had promised to do, or even just moving the time-frame I promised it in.

This is life. This happens. And it does make me a hypocrite, a ‘socially acceptable hypocrite’ (if you are being lenient on me) apropos my last post, except in relation to:

A group.

I think a group puts a little more pressure on the accountability thing, because it involves other people.

And therefore I still do feel that even if one is prone to slackness and hypocrisy in one’s normal life (sheepish downward glance) occasionally (which I hereby admit to, okay) that maybe one should make a bit of an extra effort towards a group.

And, actually, apparently people do.
Groups bring out the best in us.

In fact I read somewhere they surveyed a bunch of ex-marines and all of them said their ‘highest level’ of living was when they were a marine – they felt it was the period when they observed the highest moral standards of their life, i.e. they cared the most for other people around them, they felt like they were part of a community, their health, their fitness, their accountability, you name it -

And when they left the marines they did not feel so much impetus to keep all of that up, nor did they have the same group environment insisting on a high level of behaviour, and they said that their level of living tended to slip a bit after they left the marines.

I get this.
I think groups encourage people to be better than they are on their own.

I have been in many groups in my life – creative joint venture groups, bands, teaching groups, clubs, all sorts of groups – the thing about groups is that it’s harder to get 6 or 8 people together than it is 2 people… and the greater the size of the group, the more variables and therefore the harder to organize them …

So for me, group events tend to take priority, if I am a committed member to a group, simply because it’s probably going to be easier to reschedule whatever I had planned than for the whole group to reschedule and find another common day.

Erm; so, given that I’m a hypocrite (like most people!) – I still believe in and strive for a high level of accountability – and I think people in groups should exercise an even higher level of accountability than they do in their normal life.

So that like the marines, the group brings them to a higher life experience than they would have as individuals.

And so be that!

PS Read Part One.

Tagged as: accountability, higher living, hypocrisy, socially acceptable hypocrite