Ownership and Responsibility
Date Posted: November 23rd, 2008
Before I moved into Aaron’s tiny apartment a year and half ago, I had my own tiny university owned apartment. It wasn’t much, but I was the only one living there, all of the stuff in it was mine (except the university owned furniture), and I was the one responsible for taking care of it. That didn’t mean that I actually took care of it very often, but it did mean that if anyone was going to clean or do dishes or sweep it was going to be me. The apartment felt good and right and mine. It felt like home.
After having a roommate for several months and doing a four month co-op in Texas I moved into Aaron’s apartment. I soon found that things felt different. The apartment didn’t feel like mine even though I was paying half the rent and some of my stuff was there. What was different? I attributed it to the fact that Aaron had already laid claim to the place. He’d lived in it for almost two years already, and virtually all of the furniture (tables, chairs, couch, futon, bookcases, etc.) were his. There wasn’t enough room for me to bring all of my stuff, so that simply wasn’t going to happen. Also, he’d picked out this apartment himself. That should have had something to do with the feeling of ownership, right? When we moved into a place of our own things would surely feel different.
At the end of August we moved into our current house. Because it’s much bigger than our old apartment I got to help supplying furnishings for it. All of the paintings of mine that were still at my parents’ house are now up on the walls. The kitchen table is the one that I’d used every day growing up. Even the desk that was in my old room at my parents’ house now has a place. And, of course, we picked out the house together. You’d think that now, finally, this house would feel like it was mine.
Except that I’d still catch myself thinking that one day I’d have a place of my own. o.O That’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, this IS my own place. I’m paying a good portion of the rent. I’ve helped furnish this place. Yet it feels like I’m living with my parents except I’ve traded my parents for Aaron. That can’t be good. What’s wrong here?
Ownership and Upkeep are Correlated
The reason I didn’t feel like the house was mine was because I hadn’t needed to take initiative to upkeep it. Aaron will do the vacumming, nag at me to help to help him clean up the clutter, and put up the wall hangings that I didn’t feel like putting up. Ultimately he’d been in charge of keeping the house nice and clean, and I’d been mostly along for the ride. On the surface this would seem like a pretty good arrangement for me, except that the arrangement has a steep price: the house is more his than mine.
So a couple of days ago decided to take some initiative and finally clean out the music room. Since I did this independant of Aaron’s prodding something very interesting happened. My feelings about the music room started changing. Instead of it being like my bedroom at my parents’ house or like a hotel room which I used but didn’t upkeep, I felt responsible for it and effectively was responsible for it. That responsibility changes everything.
Roommates Can Mess Up Ownership Relationships
When I was living by myself I didn’t have to work at feeling like I owned the place. Even if the place was a mess, I was still the one who had to ultimately clean it. As I mentioned earlier, Aaron tends to take the intiative. It’s nice because I get to live in a cleaner house, but it’s bad because I have to do more to make it feel like mine. Luckily I really want to feel like I own the house, so I have a strong incentive to improve my behavior. After all, the only other option would be to ask him to lower his standards, and that would be incredibly stupid. Living in a clean house is nice!
Are there any areas of your life where other people are messing with your feelings of ownership and responsibility? What can you do raise your own expectations?
What about Housekeepers?
What’s most important is that you’re responsible for whether or not the upkeep gets done. If you’re hiring someone to clean the house then you aren’t shirking responsibility, you’re merely delegating it. If your housekeeper doesn’t do a good job cleaning the house, it’s your responsibility to deal.
The situation with me and Aaron didn’t work that way. Aaron wasn’t the housekeep I hired to take care of the house. If the house wasn’t clean it was more Aaron’s responsibility than mine. So he was in charge and therefore he had the ownership.
Do you feel disconnected from certain areas of your life? Where can you take more responibility? Where would taking more responsibility feel good and right and powerful?
As a side note, we’re renting the house, so it may seem strange to talk about it in terms of ownership. Ownership is more a feeling than a physical reality. Someone who owns a house on paper can feel less ownership of the house than the gardener does of the yard he’s been hired to take care of. Who the owner is really a subjective thing. Similarly, if a child is adopted right after being born who’s the mother: the woman who adopted and took care of the child for 18 years or the one who gave birth to the child?
