Everyone has responsibilities. Unfortunately, not everyone is responsible.

Everyone should be accountable. Again, not everyone is accountable.

Everyone has made mistakes, wrong choices and bad decisions. Yes again, everyone has.

This has been the case through the ages. That has not changed. Or, has it?

One senses that the frequency of mistakes on the part of the typical human being likely has increased down through time. Of course, only God knows that for sure.

But, there are critical elements of the human experience today that more than suggest how much more prevalent it is that every day individuals shirk responsibilities and avoid accountability — for themselves and others.

In whomever the self-centeredness of all things ‘me’ has taken root, what is likely to blossom is not a person of character. And, that applies to all of us, whether we are young or older.

When the person is younger, adults in their midst may perceive it as “juvenile selfishness” and choose to declare, “Oh, they’ll grow out of it.”

Will they? Do they? Have they?

The human rationalizations in one’s thinking, along with the cacophony of excuses we hear all too often tell us the answers.

Try on a few of these: Life is depressing … If I had better luck … If my family was wealthier. How about: It’s fate … Other people, my parents … It’s circumstances … My father left when … My family is poor. These three are also frequently heard: racism, sexism and prejudice.

Perhaps, you’re thinking as you read this, “Yes, it’s endless.”

And, that’s the point.

Responsibility is endless!

It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you are young or old, rich or poor.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a parent, teacher, college president, governor, baseball player, basketball referee, and so on.

What matters is this: Are you a responsible individual?

More specifically, do you understand and accept your responsibilities?

Do you do so willingly? Because if you do accept your responsibilities willingly, then you will do whatever may be necessary to develop the ability to fulfill each and every one of your responsibilities.

This responsibility principle applies across the board. No exceptions. No excuses.

For example, when a man and woman are married and are blessed with a child, then as an individual — father or mother — and now a parent, each person has new additional responsibilities. Each has individual responsibility as a parent to take care of the child.

When the blessed child is born into and grows up in wedlock and a happy home, each parent has a parental helpmate to share in the responsibility for the child. And the child will have the benefit of having both a mom and a dad.

However, when a child is born to a “single” mother, no matter how loving and caring the woman may be throughout the years raising the child alone, the father, at least, has failed his responsibility.

And that father’s failure has costs. And we bear those costs — over the generations and years — as individuals, as a society and as a culture.

We bear the costs of irresponsibility every day. And, those costs are aggregate and cumulative.

The costs of irresponsibility include the very real human costs and the cultural affects of welfare, the cycle of dependency, higher rates of delinquency, sexual activity, drug use-abuse-treatment programs, etc., as well as the equally real financial costs to the public.

How does this happen? What are the likely seeds of these problems? And why has it increased over the years?

We would need many pages of this newspaper to discuss all of the possible reasons. Let’s look at just one. I call it a “cancerous-like” attitude that eats away and ultimately supplants the very marrow of human character. The cancerous attitude is: “It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.” This attitude has variations.

Here are a few examples:

A teenager takes answers from another student. “It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.”

A driver hits a parked car and rides away. “Why take responsibility for something no one saw you do?”

A married person commits adultery. “It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.”

Oh, Really? What is it?

The reality for all of us is that in every single instance in which an individual shirks or avoids responsibility, we all lose.

Of course, the individual, or group, that “got away with it” thinks they won, that no one saw them, that no one knows — because “it’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.”