The classroom door opens and all the students rush into their math class. The students settle down after minutes of talking and laughing with their friends after the weekend. The class starts like any other with the teacher asking, “OK, so if you did the homework, please turn them in in front of you”. These are the words that every student dreads but ironically forgets occasionally. But there are a few situations when half of the class grabs their head in sudden disappointment and realization of their loss, like this day. “Man, I forgot!”, exclaims one student, “I seriously forgot to check the website!”, exclaims another. The whole class jumps up spontaneously in a chain reaction. Then the teacher calms them down with the same typical sermon, “You guys knew you had homework so you should’ve at least bothered to worry about it.” The class looks down in embarrassment veiled by boredom. The teacher continues, “It was worth 5 points, but I’ll give you an extra day to finish it.” The class exhales a deep worrisome breath and continues to thank the teacher. The class goes on again rejoicing this crucial moment compelling the teacher to calm the restless class again. 

This was a typical moment for everybody in their school years. However, the typical lecture which we often excused must be taken further into account. Basically, every one of those talks convinces you to be responsible- yes, the same repetition of what your parents indirectly say at home. But, in honest truth, reality coerces you to be responsible. Reality doesn’t grant you excuses the same way your math teacher did. Remember when you procrastinated to get ready for school on those early cold mornings when the alarm clock begged you to wake up? Time went on and didn’t run with you, which made you late to school. So how could you have made that day better? Being responsible and waking up at the first ring? No. That’s not what responsibility is. Genuine responsibility is when you slept at 9:30 pm before the first day of school out of fear that you would be late.
Taking the actions before time is a higher level of achieving responsibility. It may include daily actions such as ironing your clothes before Monday, feeding the cats before you leave home or even just brushing your teeth before you go to sleep. All these actions fulfill satisfaction from the future act you are going to perform.
As simple and successful as it sounds, does the responsibility of your responsibleness hold you responsible? Wait, what? Another way to say it- yes, you need to be responsible for your responsibilities. It’s ironic how this human quality requires itself to remain consistent. 

But let’s take this ethics class into a deeper level. The students who didn’t do their homework, which could have been you years ago, probably regret whatever they were doing at the time of being responsible. They most probably call themselves “Stupid” when they forget their homework but freak out and say “OMG!” when they don’t study for a big test. So taking all the sci-fi movies into our minds, what did Marty McFly (From the hit movie “Back to the Future”) do at a time of an approaching calamity? Yes, the answer is time travel. It is also the answer of the depressed and desperate student’s thoughts to change the upcoming test’s score. But in my crazy mind, time travel is, in an absurd way, equivalent to your responsibility without actually time travelling. Yes. With responsibility, the person yesterday is who you praise for today’s accomplishments. (Wow, I should trademark that)

For example, after Marty’s every successful mission, he feels content by acknowledging the right things he did to change the present. That was accomplished by his crazy Doctor’s crazy formula :one pint twenty one Gigawatts” consumption of energy needed to time travel. But guess what, since humans aren’t that awesome enough to time travel, we don’t need any fractions of a what. We can change the future, just bare with me, by being responsible- isn’t that a superpower to be cherished?

But Marty Mcfly is not the only person who time travelled, you have too. The condition and very place you are sitting now is the result of the actions you took responsibly in your non-time-travelled past. Had you not been responsible and searched for a job, you would not have been sitting in this comfortable sofa or office chair reading this. Perhaps, you may be sitting in a student’s chair because you chose yourself to exist in school today.
You have also done wonders with your confined capability of time travelling. On a bigger scale, your past hard work has earned you the good grades you have now. It was your own responsibility that helped you to be in the position you are today. You thank yourself for the present blessings you experience now, but rather you should thank your past life who was the person behind this whole accomplishment. When you recall the struggles you were in, you actually mentally time travel back in those times, and feel proud enough to give yourself a pat on the back while thinking, “Wow, how responsible I was back in that time”. Using this power correctly can put you in the pleasant situation of the happy students who did their math homework that day unlike the rest half of the class who do not know how to use this power.

As every person is born with this somewhat subtle superpower, some people take their ability as a burden for the very reason of abusing it. Not being responsible is a self-inflicted bane  that can cause self-hate- a minor example shown by the student who called himself stupid. Don’t be like that kid. However, there are also more serious consequences of not being responsible. Such as the students who I did not get to mention because they didn’t come to school as a result of not doing their homework intentionally. A person who says, “Live life to the fullest” in a club is for sure going to hate what happens to himself when he wakes up with a hangover the next morning. The power of responsibility backfires on such people. please don’t be like that guy.

Each second determines the other depending on what you do. Correspondingly, so does a day and so on. But responsibility is the cognitive power each person possesses to exploit the time that is running away to manipulate it to your own will. You can handle each second, which becomes your past, as a responsibility to make a favorable future. Just as I was going to say, Lincoln also says to refrain from avoiding responsibility, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”  (Guess I can’t trademark mine now). Yup you can be like Lincoln if you want(ed) to be.

So control the future how you want it to be meticulously by not regretting the past. Your past is who you always look back to when you reflect upon today. Also, don’t be like the faulty students who did not know how to use their power of responsibility to their advantage. But rather be like the teacher from the math class, the master of his responsibility, who exploited it to reach a position that keeps him away from any other responsibilities. Because the liberation of this heavy power, however, is what one works towards.