Personal Responsibility is Crucial for Happiness-Maximization.As those who have embarked on the quest for happiness know quite well, a crucial milestone on the path involves taking personal responsibility. Taking personal responsibility means not blaming others for your unhappiness. It means figuring out ways in which you can be happy despite others’ (negative) behaviors and despite the external circumstances.
A person who has taken personal responsibility recognizes an all-important truth about happiness: your happiness depends much more on your attitude than it does on objective, external circumstances.
Does this mean that one can be happy no matter what the external circumstances? Can one be happy despite intense physical or psychological pain?This is the question many of my students ask when I talk of taking personal responsibility for happiness.