My sister and I really enjoy watching the crime channel. But trust me when I say we have no intentions of becoming criminals, we simply watch it out of fascination. We are fascinated that there are human beings who think like that. Some of the crimes are so well planned but what shocks us the most is that most of the murder crimes are committed by people closest to the victims.

We always pose the question when we watch a gruesome act; don’t these people have a conscience? Do they not fear God? Do they not fear what their loved ones or the community will say?

I remember echoing to my sister that I am very afraid of someone who is not accountable to anyone, to a point that I will be very scared to marry someone who is not accountable to any one because that person could kill me. I am accountable to different people and I always think twice before doing anything, because I always think about the consequences of my actions.

I know this is very contrary and goes against what we often hear in our generation. We are constantly bombarded with the gospel of “do whatever feels right to you”. I have a bit of an issue with that. I’ve been in situations where I felt like punching someone in the face or getting a gun and shooting them and that felt right to me at that point because of the hurt I was experiencing. But, I didn’t because the consequences of my actions would have not contributed to a more peaceful society.

I think if we begin to live with the “accountability mindset”, we will act appropriately. If we have that consciousness even in our work environments we won’t abuse company resources and when we make mistakes in the projects we work on we can simply admit the wrong done and adjust our behaviour accordingly.

We live in a world where people just want to do whatever they feel and throw the “I have rights phrase” in your face and that is why we have so many challenges in our world today. I was reflecting and realised that in the periods of my life where I didn’t have the “accountability consciousness”, I made some really foolish mistakes. The minute I adopted the accountability mindset I changed my tactics.

Being accountable to someone does not take away your power, but rather it gives you the tremendous honour of subconsciously being of service to those around us. We often picture serving as a very domesticated act (e.g. washing people clothes; making coffee for someone at work; running errands for someone etc.), but I would like to argue that when we consciously think about our actions from an accountability point of view, we can really do great things collectively.