insert witty title here

Over the years I've come to notice that a significant portion of the adult population prefers to delegate responsibility for themselves onto other people.

To the casual observer, statements that begin with "You make me..." (i.e. "You make me happy" or "You make me angry") might seem innocuous but if you think about it, what Person A is actually doing is declaring that Person B is responsible for how Person A feels.

Some may argue that this is simply a figure of speech and I agree that in rare instances that's a correct assumption. However, I've noticed that the majority of people who talk (and think) like this also exhibit the behaviour that Sydney Harris was referring to when he said:

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice -- that is, until we stop saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it."

Granted, one person can make another feel something, but those feelings are restricted to physically manifested sensations such as pain or pleasure and not to emotional states of mind.

I've learned to be very wary around people who attempt to make me responsible for their feelings, because it's usually a prelude to being handed responsibility for everything else in their lives...and I have my hands full simply trying to be responsible for myself.


.