We all seem to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. The nature of this burden may change with age. When young, we feel the weight of having to choose a direction in life. As adults, we feel encumbered by all the perceived requirements of an active life; trying to control events, win acceptance, maintain relationships, on and on, with each new self-shaped solution for success only increasing our burden. Then, as we naturally mature and slow down, we often find ourselves feeling oppressed by the things left undone. In short, regardless of our efforts we tend to feel weighted down by what we perceive as our responsibility, to create and live a meaningful life.

Each of us, to some extent, feels certain that we are obligated to carry this weight. Our idea of shouldering it is to work hard, struggling to appear important in the eyes of others, as well as in our own. It’s a wearisome task with few real rewards, and since the only real pressure we're under is self-imposed, the only relief we find is when we get off of our own backs. Surprisingly, most people recoil at the suggestion that the weight they carry is in their own minds only.

‘I’m a responsible person.’ All of us have heard such claims. We may even have spoken-these words, or at least felt these sentiments. They reveal that not only should we not suffer over whatever we have assumed as our responsibility, but that our first real responsibility is to see through all forms of self-created suffering. Let’s take a closer look into this contradictory condition within ourselves. To begin with, we want things to change. But we also want it to get better, which means to change according to our own notions of success. So, we try to control what happens, believing that the tension this cause between life and our ideas about it is what it means t feel responsible. There is something misplaced in the mixture of life and our longings that grows unseen. The reason we strain as we do to carry this daily load is because we believe it is what’s required of us to create a real self.

When we try to change life in response to the prodding of this false self, the results are self-formational. All self-formational   changes   are   awkward   and temporary at best, because they are not rooted in reality. The struggle we undergo to bring them about is not only painful in itself, but causes additional suffering, as when our false sense of responsibility causes us not only to interfere with our own lives, but also with those of others around us. Wrongly believing that the way someone else behaves is our responsibility not only makes us suffer, but that person as well when we try to meddle with his or her life. Our growing awareness of our mistake causes us to become disenchanted with the self-formational approach to living, and we begin to seek the transformational life instead.