To take personal responsibility, psychologically speaking, is to resolve to sit in the driver’s seat of your consciousness. “But I can’t control my emotions,” some will protest. Nor can you control everything on the road, either. Does that mean, if you’re going to drive, that you will shut your eyes and hope for the best while you jam on the accelerator and try to go forward? When you resolve to drive your mind, you accept responsibility for attempting to understand, reason with and, yes, even control your emotions. You can also introspect or talk with selected others about your emotions. Just as a driver accepts the reality of red lights, lanes, and concrete barriers, a person can accept the requirement to place reason above emotions when the two conflict. Mental health really stems, in large measure, from an attitude. This attitude of personal responsibility is not all that’s required, but it’s a huge part of it. And it’s foundational. Without it, there will be no mental sanity, much less happiness.