Following yesterday’s little incident, the topic of responsibility has been playing on my mind. Responsibility, they say, can weigh heavy on the shoulders of some people. But that need not be the case if we all accept that each and every action we take comes with automatic responsibility.
We all make mistakes from time to time, we are only human after all and mistakes are an all too human trait. The mistakes themselves are, quite often, easily forgiven, if we take the simple, and honest action of owning up.
Owning up is a bit of a strange saying, don’t you think? Owning means responsible for, owning a dog means being responsible for that animal, owning a house means being responsible for the upkeep of that building. So owning up to a mistake really means accepting that you are responsible for that mistake.
The big problem comes, it seems to me, when we refuse to be responsible for making, or refuse to accept that there is, any mistake we have made. Being a fully paid up member of the human race, I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes. The problems have always come along when I’ve failed to own up.
So there are two simple ways to help with our mistakes. Think before you think, say or do anything, and if it transpires at a later time, that it was a mistake, take responsibility for that mistake before it causes any more problems.
Taking responsibility for all our actions is a basic principle of Buddhism, but of course it should be a principle we all live by, irrespective of our faith. We were spectators to an incident at work today, where responsibility was dodged, or at least postponed.
The challenges we meet in life are often seen as the negative side of our existence. We alone can decide how we deal with them, either we can accept them, tackle them head on, or we can shy away from them and hope they go away. Anyone who has tried the second path will know that it virtually never works, so accepting challenges has to be the right way to go.
Sometimes in life we find ourselves in difficult and painful situations. The laws of Karma are universal, we get what we deserve, and whether we recognise the causes or not, the effects speak for themselves. 
Abu Qatada, one of the UK’s most dangerous extremist preachers, has been 
Daily life can sometimes seem drab and unexciting. Living itself can often seem a strain, and a few of us unrealistically expect the joy we feel to last forever.
All this hullabaloo about Scottish independence is making me wonder about the motives behind the latest dialogue between the Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. The formation of the Scottish Parliament was always the first step on the road to independence, and I’m fine with that, it should be the Scottish people who decide.
Tomorrow is a very special day for people all around the world. It is the annual Armistice Day, the day we remember all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, there will be a two minute silence in their honour. Wearing a Poppy emblem to symbolise your respect is a very British tradition, but the emblem itself has become a universally recognised symbol of remembrance.
They are estimating the Friday Euro Lottery draw will have a jackpot of €100,000,000. What would you do with that kind of money? Buy a fancy car, a posh house, even buy Greece? It’s a pipedream for so many people, which is where all the money comes from, from the tickets that people buy. For many, it is, in effect, their only realistic route to such riches. Or is it?
When your life isn’t going the way you want it to, change it! We are all in control of our own lives, though at times that may seem a little hard to believe. We are all where we are today, doing what we are doing and being what we are being, because of the choices we have made along the way.
The Search For Enlightenment 
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