Your home is your responsibility

When you are young, you often live with your caretakers. When you are an adult (to some degree) you begin to choose where you live and you make a home for yourself.

Maybe only a room at first. Later an apartment, home or even a castle.

Your home is your responsibility.

You have to live in it

The state of your home matters to you. You live in it. You have to live in it, it’s your home. To sleep, eat, wash, dress, etc.

It might be the case that you don’t spend much time there, which is fine. Most people prefer their home to be their safe space. The place where they can relax and chill and don’t have to think about stuff.

In general, most people prefer it to be organized to some degree. Cleaned up, laundry done, dishes away, etc. How you like it is up to you.

You may not have the energy to keep it the way you like all the time and that’s okay too. It’s your home, nobody should judge you on that.

Something messed up

There was a party yesterday. Someone broke in while you were away. Someone you invited in went wild and just started breaking stuff. Regardless of how, something happened.

As you assess the damage… Holy penguin in a bow-tie! It’s a total mess. Things are broken, there’s trash everywhere and how did that end up upside-down?!? You probably won’t even notice everything that is wrong until later. Finding more things out of place or even discovering something else that was broken.

You may not be responsible for the mess, but you have to deal with it. Because it’s your home.

The cleanup

It doesn’t matter how the mess was caused, who did it or even why. The blame is irrelevant. There is a mess.

Your house doesn’t clean itself. Broken things don’t repair themselves. You are the owner of your house so it comes down to you to make this happen.

This doesn’t mean you have to do it alone!

Maybe you live with someone who will help you.

Maybe your friends are still there and can help you clean up. Or maybe you can call some of your buddies who live nearby, they would help.

Maybe you have to call a professional, they can help you even better than you could do on your own. It might cost money or fall under insurance, it is too important to leave it for too long.

Maybe you need some special equipment, who knows?

Maybe you’re too tired and want to clean up later. Up to you, your home. Of course it does get harder the more you delay it, but if you have people able to come over to help, it can definitely be worth it.

Lessons learned

After something like that happens, you might become more careful with who you invite into your house. If they’re prone to breaking things or if they always magically disappear before it’s time to clean up, perhaps you won’t invite them next time. Maybe you’ve learned to always double-lock your front door before leaving or not leave the back door open for the dog.

You can’t always prevent the mess from happening. You can’t unbreak something that was broken. Some things are replaceable or fixable, but not all.

Regardless of what caused it or who was responsible for the mess; maybe you can learn something from it. Use every opportunity to grow stronger, wiser, smarter and help prevent it in the future.

Your mind is your home

Your mind is your responsibility.

You have to live, think and feel with it. You can’t move yourself to another mind (yet).

Please take good care of it, it doesn’t clean or repair itself.

Closing note: No excuse

Responsibility is a really touchy subject to talk about, because ownership and situation are not the same thing.

You’re not the cause when someone else breaks your favorite mug. You could make them replace it, but you might have to ask. Some people take that responsibility before you even ask, which is the right (and decent) thing to do. They are not responsible for the state of your house, but they are responsible for their actions in it.

Sometimes they don’t even know what damage they’ve done until you tell them.

If you make a mess in someone else’s house, you better offer to help clean it up. If you break something, offer to replace it. Leaving someone else to deal with the mess you caused or the damage you’ve done is not cool. Because they have to deal with it, they have no choice, it’s their home. The least you could do is help.

Using someone else’s responsibility as an excuse to not take yours is wrong. We are each responsible for our own actions and minds.

The personal responsibility of someone else does not mean less responsibility for your actions.

Let’s clean up together.