This seems like an extreme interpretation of "responsibility for other people." There are people in my care whom I'm completely aware I cannot mold into shapes of my choice, but for whom I accept the responsibility of keeping them off the street--and therefore, primarily, of keeping myself in adequate condition to keep them off the street. And I agree with GP; that to me feels like a key element of my adulthood. [Edited for grammar]

My father used to say your not an adult until your third child. I think his point was it's not about being independent so much as juggling responsibly when you can't make everyone happy.

this.

i've joked before that parenting 3+ young kids is really just figuring out how to ensure one doesn't get neglected any more or less than the others or that it's switching from man-to-man to zone defense. either way, you reach a point where the time/energy/money required to give your loved ones what they need no longer comes from "you" (your sleep/hobbies/friends), but has to be taken from what you can give your other loved ones as you are already maxed physically/mentally/financially. it's then not a matter of "doing everything you can" anymore, but trying to do the "right things" that you can, and balancing consequences of which are dropped and hoping you can mitigate in future. sometimes it works, sometimes it hurts.

friends will then joke "and that's why i'm never having kids" or "that's why we're only having one", but it's not "worse", just different.

I personally have made a lot of decisions oriented around the inevitability of this dynamic. I let friends fall away after they move across town or just otherwise lose the ability to stop seeing me regularly. I've walked away from commitments where I'd lost every single reason why I'd made the commitment in the first place, I don't do this lightly. I've let myself become estranged from family for the sole reason they didn't adequately value the effort I went to to see them.

One or two children will be all I have, I am never going to start a startup, band, or other such long shot waste of time. I only have so much to give, and I ultimately will always put myself first, because when I put myself first, the quality of what I have to give to the people I truly care about and who care about me goes way up. The people who fall short of that all have their own lives that I am not and never will be responsible for. I've learned this the hard way too many times.

I am so afraid of letting people fall away like you do. I have no idea why. There's something in me that says to keep in touch with everyone. Your way is much more productive.

Just realise that the friends who care about you can come in and out of your life quite freely, without holding any grudges.

Imagine leaving to travel one day, for a year, no contact with anyone. Then imagine who will be excited to see you versus who will be bitter and distant because you left. You don't need the latter.

I am of the view that you should be happy with what time you get with others, because it is a privilege to be thankful for. No one owes you their time, nor do you owe yours to others, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

It's hard to close your life off in a healthy way. You have to think hard about things you probably would rather just not think of. Just yesterday a friend of mine miscommunicated with me, causing me to drive 45 mins in rush hour traffic to wait for him in an empty bar for two hours before I went home.

I was livid. I fired off an angry text when he asked me where I was and he chose to argue rather than apologize. In these kinds of situations you have to decide when, why, and how, and whether to cut them off.

I decided that I would use the same rule for him as I do for my lady friends. Always meet somewhere I know and am comfortable with, never somewhere new. That way if they don't show up it's not a total loss. Also never drive anywhere but home, the coffee shop, or my bar right after work. The better and more flexible and more intelligent boundaries you put up, the more and better people you'll bring into your life.

But it takes fearlessness and guts.

What was your friend's excuse for not showing up for the meeting he had set up?

Perhaps another way of interpreting that statement is that you are responsible for not imposing yourself on other people. Assuming "other people" to mean any member of the human race, your interpretation would seem to mean "you are responsible for everyone you have any relationship with or to", which I don't think is what the parent commenter meant.

Some are suggesting that responsibility for others is implied within a family relationship (spouses, children, elderly parents), but I disagree with this interpretation as it would exclude anyone without those relational ties from being recognized socially as an adult. I'm sure there are orphaned, spouse-less, childless people out there whom we would socially consider adults.

This is why charity via direct cash disbursements works. You're trusting that people understand their own situations better than you do, in effect respecting the recipients as adults.

This is very similar to the business and military leadership academic findings across generations that resources and authority should be allocated to those closer to the source of information for greater efficiency and responsiveness as organizations / societies scale. Unfortunately, much of the world seems to believe in a cult of Taylorist management that those that manage and oversee others can best allocate resources because the presumption is that individuals are myopic / too self-important to entrust with potentially catastrophic decisions (this is a false dichotomy even by Taylorist arguments by inductive logic if we now entrust individuals to also be managers with some portion of community resources they manage).

When you help people you should make it clear to them that they need to meet you half-way. If they ask for your help, it should be obvious that if they aren't willing to meet you half way then you aren't responsible for them and are probably hurting them by trying to help.

Reminiscent of the teaching someone to fish. Sometimes I believe mocking was nature's social device to make people reconsider and change their life.

It's also easy to give a hand because you're stuck in your own life. (not implying that was your case, but the actual act is similar)

Don't sell your efforts short...sometimes the advice we give others is, at a minimum, the presentation of potential path(s) a person may choose to follow...

Being given options, or even being made aware that there are options, especially in the case of children, is a gift that can produce amazing outcomes...

How many of us have been given direction, even if unknowingly, by a single sentence uttered by someone trying to "help"? (e.g., "you're really good at organizing things, solving problems, etc...)

Individuals are often not very good at identifying their best, and most marketable, talents...sometimes others can offer perspective...