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to take responsibility for the choices we make.  We live in an increasingly remote world where communications happen over vast distances and decisions in one country can affect the entire world.  I think the world of business in particular should take note of the lesson Ned Stark offers here: it is too easy for the signing of one contract by some people in a office to create or axe hundreds of job, to preserve or destroy entire habitats, to make or break economies, in simple terms to nourish or destroy life.  I think if all executives and politicians made themselves come face-to-face with the consequences of their decisions, we might have better decision-makers, and better outcomes for everyone.
    As I mentioned near the beginning of this chapter while we are certainly not responsible for everything that happens in our lives, we are responsible in the face of everything that happens.  One wonderful example of someone taking responsibility in this way is Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the King's Guard.  Ser Barristan is a great example of the true expression of many warrior virtues, but the specific moment I am talking about here is when Ser Huw of the Vale is killed by Ser Gregor 'The Mountain' Clegane in the Hand's tourney.  Ned Stark goes to see Ser Huw's body and finds Barristan there and asks:
     
    “Does Ser Huw have any family in the Capitol?”
     
    To which Barristan replies:
     
    “No, I stood vigil for him myself last night.  He had no-one else.” [xiv]
     
    It is not Barristan's fault the young man is dead, nor is Ser Huw his responsibility as family, but in the face of this tragedy Barristan chooses to do what he sees as his spiritual duty.  Knowing there is no-one else, Barristan steps in and answers the perennial question of activism:
     
    “If not you then who?” [11]
    It is all too easy to feel helpless when faced with life's challenges.  It is hard to constantly turn to ourselves and challenge the voice that says “There's nothing I can/could do...” But if we don't challenge that voice at every step, if we don't do battle with our own apathy and sense of defeat then by increments we die.  Perhaps not physically – although the depths of psychological despair can be very directly connected to illness, even terminal illness [12] – but in our hearts we numb ourselves so as not to have to face the deep knowledge that we have given up on life and forsworn our power to effect change.  This is a hard road to walk, that is why I see it as part of what makes a person a warrior,  but if I want to be able to embrace life fully, if I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and feel proud of the man I see there then it is a necessary challenge to face. 
    Viktor Frankl wrote that in the concentration camps people died two deaths.  There was the physical death which came when they were killed, but way before that there was a spiritual death as they succumbed to the hopelessness and had the internal freedom I mentioned earlier, the ability to respond (response-ability) beaten out of them.  For me, one of the great tragedies of modern life is that while many of us (especially in the so-called 'First-World' countries) have amazing freedoms in so many ways,  I see so many people who seem to have given up on this most essential of freedoms: the freedom to manage and challenge my own response to life's difficulties.  I think that our culture of possession where for so many people self-esteem and self-respect is based on how much stuff you own, is at least partly the cause of this (although it is a little chicken-and-egg).  When 'Having' is more important than 'Being' it's easy to get drawn into a striving for perceived material freedom (to have anything I want to have) rather than focusing on personal freedom (to be anything I want to be).  This same cultural trend is prevalent in much of the world of Westeros as well, where so much can be bought by gold – even, in many cases, a man's