Responsibility

They say that worldly achievement involves not only risks and rewards but also responsibility.

Fair enough.

But how do you know if you’ve got the mix right?

With the Sun in Aries and the Moon in Capricorn, the next couple of days will provide opportunities to discover just that but I’m guessing that it won’t be all that easy and here’s why.

Consider the story of Minos of Crete who, in order to become king, enlisted the aid of Poseidon, god of the sea. In return, Minos promised to sacrifice to Poseidon a wondrous white bull. But when it came time for Minos to honour his part of the bargain, he reneged, choosing to substitute his 2^nd best bull instead.

In making this decision, Minos might well have used a classic risk/reward analysis – i.e. the potential reward (to him) of keeping the better bull outweighed the risk that Poseidon would find out (or even care).

But unfortunately Poseidon did find out (and he cared) and in retaliation caused Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, to fall in love with that  wondrous white bull. That in itself may not have been so bad. After all, marital indiscretion has often been an issue dealt with by kings. But when, after coupling with the bull, Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur, the plot thickened; each year nine youths and nine maidens had to be sacrificed in order to feed the Minotaur’s foul appetite and after awhile the folks in the street started to get angry. Finally, the Athenian hero Theseus arrived in Crete and with the help of Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, killed the Minotaur freeing Crete from its terrible curse.  Minos, worn out by guilt and sorrow, died and Theseus became the ruler of both Athens and Crete.

I figure that this means that – despite the outcome of any risk-reward analysis, responsibility requires us to always consider that each and every decision we take also has an impact on others; Minos forgot this at his peril.

You wouldn’t want to do the same thing, would you?