Reader:

Laws cannot take the place of personal responsibility and self-discipline.

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Morning Minute 9.11.26

“There Oughta Be a Law!” Laws cannot take the place of personal responsibility and self-discipline.

When something goes wrong, how often have you heard someone say: “There oughta be a law!”

Sometimes there should be.

Laws establish boundaries, protect rights, and create consequences for harmful behavior.

But can a law make someone responsible?

Can it create self-discipline?

Can government require someone to make good decisions when no one is watching?

Let's examine some symptoms, situations, and expectations we see around us.

​SYMPTOMS:

Parents sometimes expect schools to teach children the respect, discipline, manners, and accountability that should also be taught and reinforced at home.

Adults sometimes blame employers, circumstances, institutions, or government for consequences created partly by their own decisions.

It's easier to ask, “Who is going to fix this?” than:

“What responsibility do I have for making it better?”

​SITUATIONS:

We encounter situations every day where rules become substitutes for personal judgment.

Someone abuses a privilege, so another rule is created.

Someone makes a poor decision, then expects someone else to absorb the consequences.

Someone sees a problem and waits for someone else to solve it.

But there is a limit to what any rule can accomplish.

Laws can establish boundaries. They cannot manufacture character.

​EXPECTATIONS:

Personal responsibility begins when I accept:

My choices matter. My actions have consequences. And I am responsible for what I do next.

​Self-discipline turns that responsibility into action.

It's doing what needs to be done—even when it's difficult, inconvenient, or no one is watching.

Jesus teaches us about responsibility in Matthew 25:14–30—the Parable of the Talents.

A man leaving on a journey entrusted three servants with different amounts of his property. Two put what they had been given to work and multiplied it. The third, afraid to take responsibility for what he had received, buried it. When the master returned, he didn't judge them by whether they had received equal gifts.

He judged them by what they did with what they had been given.

God has given each of us different abilities, opportunities, and responsibilities.

We aren't responsible for having received the same gifts as someone else.

We are responsible for what we do with those entrusted to us.

Government can pass laws.

Employers can establish rules.

Parents can establish boundaries.

Schools can establish standards.

But none of them can give us personal responsibility or self-discipline.

Those decisions belong to us.

And perhaps that's when creating stronger families, workplaces, communities—and a stronger country—really begins.

Not by waiting for someone else to tell us what we must do.

But by deciding what we should do—and having the self-discipline to do it.

Imagine what we could accomplish if each of us developed the abilities God gave us and then used them to serve our families, coworkers, communities, and each other.

Instead of asking:

“What should someone else do?”

Ask:

“What can I do with what I've been given?”

Then do it.

And strive to someday hear our Lord say: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Keep Learning! Keep Leading!

And remember:

Information without transformation is wasted energy!

That is today's Morning Minute.

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I would love to get your thoughts on today's Morning Minute message.

In confidence please share your views on this message with me at lab@larryonlearning.com.

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