Responsibility. It is about the ability to answer for our actions and compromise ourselves in our duties. It is also said of an uncommon ability in our day, in a society that claims rights, but avoids duties.
Allergic to duties, fueling the narcissistic presumption that we can receive without giving anything in return, it is not uncommon to meet people who have become specialists in avoiding responsibility.
The main problem is that these people project their responsibilities onto others and expect others to take on their obligations and mistakes.
If we meet a person who does not assume their responsibilities, it is likely that we will end up carrying a very heavy burden made up of our duties in addition to his.
The strategies of people who do not take their responsibilities
1. Projection
Projection is a defense mechanism through which the person attributes their feelings, desires and motivations to others. The person does not recognize their emotions as their own and projects them onto us, blaming us when they feel frustrated, overwhelmed, angry or sad.
If that person gets angry, for example, in order not to recognize his anger, he attributes it to us and is also likely to accuse us of not being reasonable, when in reality the opposite is true. To evade his emotional responsibilities, he pours those affective states onto those close to him.
2. Intimidation
In this case, the person resorts to insults, humiliations and contempt to evade responsibility. This intimidation is usually verbal, through insults, but can also resort to joking with the aim of belittling the other.
Basically, intimidation is a power tool. In fact, the person knows that if he manages to intimidate us, we will not ask him for his responsibilities. Therefore, try to conquer a higher position in which we feel obliged to assume its obligations or leave it alone.
3. Attack
The attack as a strategy to avoid responsibility does not take place on the physical but on the psychological one. The person is aware that he has made a mistake, but before they ask him for his responsibility, he decides to attack us.
Usually the attack begins with something insignificant, a trivial situation, but the person takes advantage and exaggerates to the point of diverting attention from what is really happening. It is as if it feeds a small fire to divert attention from a huge fire taking place elsewhere.
4. Blaming
One of the most common strategies of people who evade their responsibilities is to blame ourselves for any mistakes made. To clear themselves, these people will not hesitate to manipulate and distort the facts as they please.
In this case, people want us to pay for their damages. Not only do they not recognize their responsibility, but they intend to force us to take it upon themselves and will probably also take on the role of victims.
5. Avoidance
Avoidance is a strategy that many people use to avoid their responsibilities. In this case, the person will not fight or get angry, he will simply try to escape from the situation when we try to put him in front of his obligations.
Sometimes avoidance takes place on the physical plane: the person abandons family or work, other times he hides behind indifference and silence. In these cases, the person is present, but avoids talking about the problem, usually by keeping quiet.
6. Denial
Denial can become one of the most frustrating tactics of people escaping their responsibilities. In this case, the person will simply deny everything. If she is compromised, she will deny it. If he is wrong, he will deny it.
His strategy is to destabilize us with stubbornness. The person is unwilling to acknowledge responsibility even in the face of evidence. It will exhaust our resources, energy and time by denying its role in history, to the point that we will come to wonder if it really happened and if we were not wrong.
7. Exhaustion
This tactic to avoid accountability involves taking a small detail and discussing it endlessly. The person does not accept to discuss the problem or the consequences of their actions, but diverts our attention by bringing it to an irrelevant point.
In this way, the conversation goes off the rails and enters a vicious circle. This will end up exhausting us, frustrating us and annoying us, until we agree with him or give up taking on his responsibilities.
What can we do with people who do not take their responsibilities?
We cannot force anyone to assume their responsibilities. We can only talk to him to try to make him understand that we all have obligations and that a good coexistence depends on the fact that everyone is mature enough to take the consequences of their actions, correct their mistakes and take on their responsibilities.
Unfortunately, persuasion doesn't always pay off. Therefore, sometimes the only solution is to get to know people and reduce our expectations. If we know that someone is systematically evading their obligations and responsibilities, we had better not rely on that person for serious matters.
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