The core of being self-responsible is managing your emotions. Managing your emotions means recognizing and accepting the premise that not all of your feelings are necessarily logical and based on facts. This recognition leads to a self-responsible habit of not only experiencing emotions but also stepping back and saying, “Maybe some of these emotions aren’t logical and valid. I should check into this.” Self-responsibility means, yes, being a grown-up and being willing to think. Most of the world does not do this consistently and much of the world doesn’t do it at all.
A lot is made of empathy. But empathy is not love for others. Empathy is a willingness and ability to see something from another’s point of view. Empathy is a consequence of the self-responsible willingness to think about emotions. A person with empathy is able to consider how another might feel, or might view something, because he’s already in the habit of examining the reality (or lack thereof) underlying his own emotions.