How to Become Stronger? Free Essay Example

In 7th grade, I remember kids fooling around in class and one of them threw a piece of paper across the room. Our teacher, Mr. P, saw it and became upset. ‘Who threw that paper?’ he asked and a few moments later, a hand shot up. It was one of my classmates—let’s call him X— and he said, ‘I’m sorry Mr. P, I won’t do that again.’ The events that had just unfolded fascinated the 11 year old me. I was in awe of how my teacher immediately took notice when something went wrong and just as easily, my classmate took responsibility for his actions and apologized.

He held himself accountable. See, I’ve spent most of my life being groomed in surroundings and institutions where kids would not come forward when they did something wrong because they feared the consequences that they would have to eventually face or they would be afraid of the person at a higher position than them.

That mindset would harbor in the minds of those kids and they would carry that mindset into their teenage and young adult lives, causing them to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, no matter how big or small, no matter whether it was intentional or accidental, because they would fear things going awry.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, my concern is accountability in our societies, or the lack of it thereof. First, I will attempt to explain how we function around accountability and how we respond to potential consequences. Second, I will explain the damages caused by our lack of action.

Third, I will propose some suggestions—improvements that we can implement within ourselves and within society. Webster’s dictionary defines accountability as ‘an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions’.

Ranging from everyday problems to problems that affect our societies as a whole, people tend to be afraid to speak up against, hold accountable something they know in their gut to be wrong. For most people, thinking about the probable, dreadful consequences takes preference over addressing a problem. When they themselves have done something they know is wrong, they fear consequences that may damage their reputation or force them to face punishments of some sort and so on. When it comes to someone else, a wide variety of questions dance around in their minds.

What if the person they were speaking up against ends up physically or emotionally harming them or the people and things dear to them? What if the ideas they were rightfully refuting ended up making people mad, the kind of people you would not want to mess with? These questions are valid and concerns for safety are valid too but we must understand that our collective silence leads to the persistence of problems in society. The silence we adopt as a result of our fear doesn’t only affect us, it affects millions of people around us. In today’s time, we see examples of injustices, oppression and wrongful persecution happening all around us.

The dreadful police brutality in the United States of America, the demand for democracy in Hong Kong, the forgotten Donbass War in Ukraine, the famine crisis in Yemen, the traumatizing genocide in Rohingya, the establishment of Nazi-style concentration camps in Uyghur, the discriminatory imperialism in India and Indian Occupied Kashmir, the honor killings spurred by backward-mindedness in Pakistan, the list does not end. You may have heard of some of the issues that I’ve listed but ask yourself, haven’t you been hearing of these issues for long enough? Isn’t it about time they were to be resolved? The reason why problems continue to persist is because of our silence and our lack of action, both on an individual and on a collective level. On an individual scale, we tend to wait for someone else to come around and make some changes by voicing their concerns, and most of the time that works because someone, somewhere decides enough is enough. But, what if everybody thought that way? What if everyone decided to wait for someone else to talk? There would be no one talking.

All great movements were initiated by a small number of people being concerned about an issue, and then as they gained more momentum, their voices grew louder, their impact became more influential and their confidence in standing up grew. Sometimes, just one or two or a few more people speaking up doesn’t do a lot. Sometimes, it takes a crowd to make noise that can be heard all over. Sometimes, speaking up just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes, we need to scream on top of our lungs to get some attention. People in power tend to act best when prompted by the people they rule over.

Our silence plays a lethal role in our heads of states ignoring issues that prevail in our societies. Most of the problems we have today can be reversed and fixed if they were to actually put in effort to solve them, effort that we can’t put in as individuals. If and when we do choose to speak up, we need to speak up against problems as much as we can. In today’s world, for some reason we do chase bad guys but it’s more like a buffet. We choose the people we want to chase after and let the others wander free.

Accountability doesn’t apply to just one or two people, it applies to every single person that is under the umbrella. I’m not saying we need to advocate for issues we don’t necessarily support. I’m asking for us to speak up when it comes to continued injustices that result in life being threatened. When we see someone being oppressed, we need to speak up. When we witness freedom being snatched away from people just because they’re a minority that don’t conform to society’s standards, we need to speak up. When we hear of mass killings and genocides, we need to speak up. We need to speak up, hold ourselves and others accountable because that is the only surefire way to guarantee betterment. You can’t solve a problem until you recognize it is a problem.

As we speak up, we must realize that there will be obstacles in the way. The people we accuse will defend themselves aggressively and call us liars. We will be slandered and charged with treachery. But I believe a few accusations and a little bit of slandering cannot possibly be worse than being stripped of your freedom and of your loved ones and of your home, being abused and quite often, even murdered. In their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), Carol Tavris and Elliott Aronson state, ‘Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously.’ ‘It’s responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks.’ Peter Bregman, The Right Way to Hold People Accountable.