Responsibility and Accountability - Part 2

Raven Forge Crew, a large, but exceptionally rewarding responsibility - 2022

If responsibility is the dark, then accountability is a mirror.

Not because one is bad and the other is good - but because the dark is where the real pressure lives. Responsibility is the load we carry, often heavy, unseen, and unshared. It exists even when no one else is watching. It's personal.

But accountability? That's the mirror. It doesn’t erase the dark—it reflects it. Sometimes it bounces light back into the shadows, illuminating what’s been hidden or ignored. Other times, it doubles the weight, showing you just how much you’re really holding. That reflection can be horrible. It can be beautiful. Depending on what you do with the information it give you, its normally both.

Accountability isn’t the opposite of responsibility. It’s the exoskeleton that surrounds it, the reflective surface that makes it visible. Alone, responsibility is an internal burden, something only you can hold. But paired with accountability, it turns introspection into action, knowledge, even power.

It doesn’t lighten the load, but it helps you carry it steadily, with both hands instead of dragging it behind you. Your accountability allows you to own this glorious fucking mess you’ve made. To look at it, steaming and red hot and just say “that’s mine”

You stop doing that stupid thing that humans to where we narrate our mistakes, desperately trying to soften their impact, or make them feel more normal. You stop waiting for someone to come and tell you it’s okay—because it is, or it fucking isn’t, and either way, its still you who has to deal with it.

That’s the bit no one tells you. Accountability isn’t loud like blame, or heavy like shame. It’s not even particularly emotional. In fact it's nothing like those things. It’s just clear. You see your actions. You see their results..

This kind of accountability doesn't mean you never mess up. You still do. Often. In fact, but you no longer need to defend yourself against... yourself. You get faster at saying, “That was me,” and you get better at asking, “What now?” You move quicker through the embarrassment, the ego, the need to be right. And what you’re left with is momentum. At that point you’re like a runaway train, fucking unstoppable. Things that would emotionally cripple other people, seem like nothing. You blasting through embarrassment and regret and sadness with the force of a thousand steam locomotives. The coal that burns in the boiler is your mistakes and dead ends.

A few years ago I wrote a journal entry about Failure, I'll post it up right after this one for posterity. I'll just call it Failure. The point is this. Accountability + Responsibility + Action → Success ∨ Failure. You can’t have one without the other. When you try something, it's either going to work, or it's not. That’s the very nature of *trying*.

Responsibility may be the thing that keeps you up at night, scanning for fires. But accountability is the voice that tells you to learn where the matches are kept, to locate the extinguishers, and to replace the fucking cladding the government sold you.

It’s not always comfortable, and it’s certainly not soft. There are days when being accountable feels like sanding your own skin off. There are days when blaming someone else would be SO easy. But there’s dignity in it. Not pride. Not self-importance. Just a deep internal respect for the fact that you showed up for yourself. That you took the hit, or made the decision, or even just admitted you didn’t know what the fuck is going on.

The irony is that when you stop defending yourself from failure, you actually fail less. Because now you’re paying attention. Things that used to look like a crippling failure, are now a pivot point, they’re a stopping point for a break, they’re just speed bumps in the road you cant be stopped on.

In accountability, you’ll inevitably find peace.
Not the peace that comes from everything being okay.
But the kind that comes from knowing that if it’s not okay,
you’re the one who will make it so.

Because, again, it’s you.