January 28, 2008

• It's not just about living forever ...

  Tucker has been sick today.  He ran a fever above 100 most of the day, in spite of my pouring ginger ale down his throat along with tylenol and flu medicine.  He pretty much just felt like crap. 

  So today has been family time with snuggles, freshly baked cookies and casseroles, and DVD movie hour(s).

  We watched Game Plan which was predictable but funny.  I enjoyed "The Rock's" tongue-in-cheek parody of the egotistical star athlete.  (And the eight year old playing the daughter was cuter than a button and deserves a great deal of praise for her performance.)

  We also watched Pirates of the Carribbean At Worlds End.  I know we may be the last family in America who hasn't seen it (excepting the Amish, people with no televisions, people who object to the film on religious principles, and survivalists who would have watched it if they weren't busy guarding that case of beans.)

  The boys were kind of in and out of the room for some of it.  I have told them that anything intense they are allowed to skip.  In fact I deliberately sent them to their rooms for the opening sequence of men, women and children being hanged because that was enough to creep me out severely.

  But they were on board for the last half of it, laughing at the right places and asking questions when it came to the philosophy espoused in the film.  One line that we talked about a lot was "It's not just about living forever, Jackie, it's about living forever with yourself."

  We all know people who have strong moral codes.  In fact, I'd wager that most of us believe that our moral code is a good one and that the world would be a better place if more people did as we did.  The thing that's amazing to me is how some of us (maybe even me) can be so blind to our own faults and moral failings. 

  I see this a lot in the work I do.  Because I'm surrounded by "do-gooder" types, you'd expect that these would be the most upstanding people you'd meet.  But just like Drs are no less prone to illness than anyone else, people who professionally seek social justice are no more resistant to temptation, rationalization, and judgmentalism than anyone else would be. 

  There was an article some time back, maybe some of you even saw it, saying that it seems the people who are in the do-gooder professions appear even more likely than the average person to commit certain kinds of "sins".  They lie on their taxes more, take "short-cuts" that would be considered out and out fraud by the rest of us, and break promises more often.  It seems that these people are particularly good at justifying their behavior in the name of the "greater good."

  I'm not much of a believer in greater good.  Does that strike you as odd coming from someone who makes her living trying to help people?  I'm a believer in the law of love, which is as high a standard as I can envision.  Treat other people as I would desire to be treated myself.  Love my neighbor, not with some silly emotional fuzziness but with my actions.  Respect the property of other people because that demonstrates that I respect them.  Understand that everyone I meet is a child of God with his or her own calling and responsibility. 

  It's not just about living forever, it's about living forever with yourself. 

  Usually when I write about moral failings I'm thinly veiling a confession of my own short-comings.  In this case, I'm not.  I know that I can be rigid and obsessive about some things.  I know that I don't always make the best choices.  But given the information I have to work with, I am fierce in my commitment to love my friends and my neighbors.  To be kind (or at least funny).  And to speak the truth in love. 

  I've been thinking about this a lot lately because one of my friends is going through a difficult time.  She's not comfortable with some of the practices at her work and she is trying to decide whether they are bad enough that they violate her ethical code, or if they are just not the choices she would have made. 

  At one point she talked about whether she should just go to work, do the minimum she had to do, and then leave it all behind at the end of the day.  The problem with that is that my friend is one who has rather high standards for herself.  She demands a strong performance from herself in every project she undertakes.  To "just work" would violate her sense of responsibility to herself.  So my advice to her has been that if she's so conflicted about the job that she cannot feel good about giving her best, she needs to find a different job. 

  At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether your boss feels that you did a good job, or whether the clients you serve ever notice that they got perfect invoices and well organized service.  At the end of the day the only person who will remember what kind of job you did, is you. 

  It's not just about living forever, it's about living forever with yourself.

  • 12:03 am
  • 12 Comments