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Read the following story. Answer the questions on the Reflection Activity. Be prepared to share your answers.Life Lesson: Washing the Dirty Dishes/Responsibilityby Frank Jennings at A Spark Starts05461000My wife says that I always make a mess. I might not agree with her but then again to some degree she might have a point.WHERE THE MESS COMES FROMI’m the wonderful guy who likes to get a new cup every time I get something to drink. It’s not that I just want to make more dirty dishes. It is just that I am too lazy to go through the house trying to find my old cup when there are so many new ones I can get that are right in front of me.The same thing happens with plates. I eat a sandwich then I put my plate in the sink. Then about 10 minutes later, when I get hungry again, I grab another plate and make another mess. I have been told that by the end of the day I use more dishes alone than a family of 13. I hope that is an exaggeration. Then again after looking in the kitchen I can see where they are coming from.I’M NOT CLEANING THAT JUNKI sit around all day eating and drinking till my heart is content. I load up the sink with dish after dish and cup after cup. Now the sink is overflowing with the big mess that I just made. And guess what? I don’t want to clean that junk up. It stinks. It’s nasty. I don’t even want to go near it. Who wants to touch old soggy food?I guess the hardest thing is not making the mess, it is cleaning it up.I mean we have a dishwasher. I could just load the dishes into there. Unfortunately, I always forget to start it up and then the house begins to smell like sewage after a few days.I could wash the dishes as I go but if I do that I might miss out on the same clips that they keep showing all day on Sportscenter. No matter how long I sit around and try to put off the inevitable, I am still going to have to clean up the mess I made. I am going to have to go in the kitchen and start washing the dishes.My mess won’t disappear on its own. My wife is not responsible for the mess I made. My son should not be responsible for the mess I made. I had the fun and ate the food so I should go clean up the mess.THE SPARKYou know I am talking about something a lot deeper than dishes right? You’ve been there. We all have been there. Not one person who walks the face of this earth is perfect. We have all made some mistakes in our lives. We all have made some messes.There is nothing wrong with making a mistake. In fact sometimes mistakes are the best way to learn something. I wouldn’t know that climbing a tree and stepping on small branches is not a good idea if I didn’t fall out of one. I will never make that mistake again. It hurt.But, what happens when we don’t learn from our mistakes? What happens if we keep making bad judgment after bad judgment and don’t take the time to right our wrongs? I know you have heard the saying, “What goes around comes around?” Well, if you believe that please explain to me why so many people try to avoid and deny their mess. It’s not just going to disappear.CLEAN YOUR OWN MESSI am a firm believer in taking personal ownership of your actions. In life you are going to reap what you sow.If I don’t take my lazy behind in the kitchen and start cleaning up my mess, guess what’s going to happen. It is going to start to stink. My house will began to smell like mold. Someone in my family is going to end up sick. The mess doesn’t go away. In fact it just gets worse and worse until someone is forced to take action.You see it starts off as just a small problem but overtime as I ignore it the situation starts to affect everyone. We have to take responsibility for our actions in order to reach our full potential. I don’t know about you but the life lesson I learned from washing the dishes revealed to me that I have some serious cleaning up to do.HOW TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS:Apologize when you are wrong. Forgive others who have made mistakes. Forgive yourself Plant positive seeds into your life to reap a positive harvest. Take ownership of your actions rather right or wrong. Accept the consequences of your actions QuestionsResponsibilityIn one sentence, summarize the story.Choose any one sentence from the story that seems to you particularly significant--for any reason--and copy it, identifying the paragraph. Then explain the reason for your choice.?Can you think of a time you had to clean up after someone else’s mess? What happened? How did you feel about it?What is an area of your life you feel you could be more responsible in? Why? What steps could you take to start taking responsibility? ................
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