Burden seeks the strong?

You often hear that God does does not burden you more than you can bear; when life keeps throwing curveballs at someone it is because he has the ability to hit them for home runs. (Hmm! WHY do you do this? No clue about baseball and you want to use baseball metaphors?) It is not only God, apparently, who does this to you. Even Society behaves in like fashion apparently.

Tiru has this to say about it.

Amaragaththu Vankannar Polath Thamaragaththum Aatruvaar Metre Porai - Tirukkural

Like the soldier who takes the responsibilty in the battlefield, the man with the strength to handle responsibility is handed the burden - Loose Translation

In any social circumstance, have you seen most people jump up to handle responsibility? Especially when they do not have the legal or moral obligation to take it on themselves? (Like, you cannot really skedaddle when the problem relates to your job or your child, no? Unless you can shove it off on a colleague or your spouse, respectively.) More often than not, even people who claim to take on the responsibility only want the authority. Other people are content with the right to criticize. Most people, though, are happy to not be noticed when the problem crops up or when it is getting solved.

AND, thus, the chap who volunteers for it OR has proven his ability in sorting problems in the past IS the chap who the community shoves the job on. Much like you push that soldier into the van of the army to take the brunt of the attack. In a way, the reward for handling responsibility well is, almost invariably, more responsibility.

This, then, means that Tiru is not exactly enthusing people who do the hard yards. It seems more like a warning about being the strong pillar of society. Except, yes, if you want to become a leader, and have the misfortune of not being born in the right family, the way to get noticed is to be the man who seeks responsibility.

Otherwise, you can see this Kural as merely a warning. THAT a display of strength could end up as an invitation to be burdened!