Knowing your rights and responsibilities
When you know your rights and responsibilities and respect the rights and responsibilities of others, no ones’ rights are violated.
As human beings we all have rights but rights always come with responsibilities. We may have parental rights but we also have the responsibility of taking care of our children’s health, welfare and wellbeing. We may, through attaining a drivers licence, be given the right to drive a vehicle on a public road but we are also responsible for driving safely and for any incidents we may cause.
We are responsible for taking care of our own needs and the needs of any young children we may have, but we are not responsible for taking care of anyone else’s needs. While we may feel another person’s pain or be disturbed by their behaviour, we are not responsible for the way they feel or their behaviour – they are. This is something we need to respect when choosing to offer any empathy or support.
We are not responsible for what happens to us as children or for anything we have thought, felt or done as a child but we are responsible for how we deal with it, how we feel about it and what we do about it as an adult.
True freedom is when we know the rights we have and assume responsibility for all the choices we make in our adult lives while not judging or assuming responsibility for the choices of others. This is because we can only change ourselves and it’s the only way we can retain the power and control we have of our own lives.
We all have equal rights but the word equal doesn’t mean we have to be the same. This is a belief that causes a lot of religious, racist and sexist conflict. We all have different thoughts, feelings and beliefs. We may have a different build or skin colour, a different culture or background but still have the same rights. Men and women, for example, are very different but they have the same basic rights and that includes the right to be different.
Every single person has the right to be cared about and treated with respect regardless of who they are. This does not mean condoning anyone’s destructive or abusive behaviour. You can always respect a person but not the behaviour or any of their ill intentions.
We all have the right to our feelings, perceptions, opinions, thoughts and beliefs and the right to express them politely and respectfully.
We have the right to be heard, to ask for what we want, to say what we need, the right to say no, the right to change our mind and the right to make mistakes.
These rights do not infringe on anyone else’s rights and we can choose not to be with anyone wishing to violate our rights.