Category: life

Working—prioritizing employment over enjoyment—limits one’s time, but so does unemployment. When you have a job schedule to keep, you can’t go to the beach and surf whenever you feel a passing whim to do so. But, when you don’t have money, you can’t ever surf because you can’t afford a surf board.

But, a good, strong work ethic is not only about employment—working for someone else; a work ethic is about self-respect. Work ethic is an intrinsic motivation—to have dignified pride in one’s own effort and accomplishment—a reward that exists on the inside as a “good feeling” for having achieved something noble and worthwhile. The intrinsic motivation for a good work ethic is well told in the adage, “Work is good for the soul.”

The intrinsic motivation for a good work ethic is, or course, exploited by employers. It’s overplayed and underpaid more often than not. But, counterfeits are only made of things of value. Paul did not lie when he told slaves to work as if for Christ since Christ would, indeed, reward them for their work beyond what any employer could ever pay—just as much as Paul didn’t lie when he told slave masters to treat their slaves with respect since Jesus is the master of all. Thanks to Biblical teaching like this, the freedom of Jesus entered a world of slavery like a healthy virus and eventually abolished slavery altogether.

The moral of the story is: Work for Jesus.

But, there are also practical arguments for a good work ethic. Societies where people take personal pride in their work outperform societies who regard labor with contempt.

Your job doesn’t need to be your dream job, but nor do you need to hate your job in order to strive for more. Always seek to improve yourself, including doing a good job right where you are, including achieving other goals so you can move on from where you are. Do well across the board and bless God for the road you’re on that will lead you to better lands.

Your own opportunities are interlaced with others in your economy. When everyone does good work, that’s better for everyone.

Management has different levels of altitude. The higher the altitude the bigger the picture and the smaller the details appear. From the lofty skies, roads look like maps rather than journeys and cars look like ants among indistinguishable colonies. Eventually the people and even entire cities disappear, being replaced by mountain ranges, oceans, deserts and plains.

Every level has its perspective and its range. Some cameras are held by photographers on the ground, others are flown by drones, others orbit from space. It is not the role of the cameras from space to perceive where a painting should be hung on a wall because cameras from space can only look straight down. Moreover, the camera in orbit can see many more details; it would be wasteful to use a camera that sees the big picture for matters that anyone on the ground with eyes can handle.

Governance is a level of management like any other—with diligence, skill, format, and time requirements. But, it’s work is done by few and is understood by even fewer. Still, it is vital.

Mountains and forests, oceans and plains, even deserts and glaciers have their benefits and value. They are painted and defined by the wider view—the bigger picture—they are decided by the seat of governance.

Governance, in practical terms, occurs at the board level of an organization, but the principles of governance carry down even to the janitor with nothing below him but the floor. The executive term is “policy”; the courtroom term is “precedence”; the business term is “big picture”; the artistic term is “broad brush”; the Biblical term is “governance”.

God is the “Governor” of creation. He sets the plains and hills while we harvest resources, sow, eat, and build upon His Earth. Just the same, rules from the top set the table and prepares the courses, but each individual decides how to eat, bite by bite.

Governance is vital. Governance decides the grand picture. Someone must sit at the helm of the greater wheel. Sweepings changes must be made and, while some changes must disrupt, a wise governor knows both the evils of too much ado about something and death by soothing poison.

Every good thing gets counterfeited and exploited. The devil’s greatest game is to convince people that he is Jesus—that wicked men might ease their guilty consciences and that good men would blame Jesus for the devil’s mischief. So it is with economics.

Populist ideals are no way to devise a working economic strategy.

Socialism is proven by repeating history to be the populism of economics, mainly because it is a pioneering financial philosophy trumpeted by those who were neither financiers nor pioneers. The first known experiment in Socialism arrived with the Pilgrims of 1620, imposed by aristocratic European investors upon the pioneering Pilgrims who abandoned Socialism in order to save their starving people. As if one failure were not enough, Socialism became one evil exchanged for another when the impoverished masses overthrew the heartless aristocrats of Russia, again ending with the same failure where basic needs are always in short supply. Socialism is history’s most predictably repeating failure. Even today, some theoretician seeks to establish an experimental commune with compelling theory as evidence, presenting none of history’s everlasting failures to learn from.

The Pilgrims finally escaped Socialist starvation and a dying population when everyone’s survival became no one’s responsibility but his own. Everyone “rose to the occasion”; the colony had a surplus of goods for the first time and was finally able to pay back its aristocratic investors only by breaking their Socialist bylaws. When Governor Bradford settled with those investors, the deaths of more than half of the colonists at the hands of their Socialist bylaws surely came up in the negotiation.

Early America was founded on this new experiment—that individuals are responsible for their own work ethic and their own corresponding results. Neither aristocracy nor investors nor society have any right to claim the credit for another’s hard-earned labors. Each one is a steward of one’s own capital—one’s own property. That self-responsible, self-reliant, freedom-based economic philosophy founded the Northers colonies that defeated Southern slavery two centuries later. It was called “Capitalism”. Ever since, disenfranchised aristocrats have sought to commandeer the very Capitalism that defeated them while Socialists blame true Capitalists for the evil deeds of aristocrats who are anything but.

The Magna Carta was arguably the first Constitution of English law. The Mayflower Compact was the first Constitution of the Americas. These were “basic laws”, providing unanimous permission from all the people to create a government. All government would be built on this Constitution because all the people had agreed to it. Once a Constitution breaks, the powerful and corrupt few find a crack through which to slip if they fool the masses just long enough to seize power from the people.

The last line of defense between the people and those who seek to oppress them is their Constitution.

Hitler spoke kindly and calmly, only later in his speeches raising his voice after telling stories that cast a hypnotic spell of anger on his audiences. The tyrant—shrouded as a “savior”—demands limitless powers to “help”, his tone so kind that none suspect him.

Over-regulation is a classic tool to subtly enslave the people. Criminals get away with almost anything when they say that they aren’t doing precisely what they are doing, especially criminals in government. Aristocrats’ favorite method to enslave society is Socialism birthed as over-regulation. A Constitution limits the ability of the criminals to commandeer the government in the name of “helping” the very problems those criminal aristocracies create in the classic pulp fiction cycle of cops and robbers justifying each other’s existence. The people need police to regulate peace—a need easily exploited.

A Constitution is, essentially, the regulation of the regulation of the regulators. Socialism seeks to delegate safety away from the people to the government. Constitutional Capitalism retains all powers among the people, creating a super-slow moving government too tied down with regulations of the regulators to be worth a criminal aristocracy’s effort.

The solution to recurring problems of governance and society remains in the hands of a society where every individual takes responsibility to learn why things are what they are. Only the people can hold power over Constitutions, but even Constitutions will be taken from them if the people are not actively involved in thinking independently and learning from history as individuals, never relegating control of their Constitution nor preservation of their freedom to any centralized authority.

If we really believe something is true, would we do what we are doing? It is okay to ask people that question when they accuse you of something absurd. Especially ask yourself this question.

Take the religious zealot who recruits people to his weekly meeting, yet seeks arguments everywhere he goes. Not many religious teach of a God who hates enemies; God’s Word’ God Who wants enemies to repent into a hopeful future. Does a truly religious man truly want to argue? Perhaps he doesn’t truly believe what he claims, one way or another. Perhaps that man is you.

Take the doctor whose patient tells him of home remedy, but that doctor doesn’t seriously think about starting a research article in a medical journal about the home remedy. Does that doctor truly want to heal people or just stick to practicing what he already knows? How about the lawyer addicted to narcotics, drives 30 over the speed limit on a regular basis, trades stock with inside tips, or hides money in offshore accounts to pay near zero tax—does he really seek “justice” in court?

Evaluate your own logic—both what you claim to believe and what you believe about others.

You don’t know why other people do what they do. Someone could seem to confront you, but is actually saving your life. The best policy is patience and to just, plain, simply not judge. You need to prove someone was NOT trying to save your life before you hold a grudge or even “forgive”.

If someone saved your life, that’s not “forgiveable”, that’s “thankable”. To forgive someone without first hearing their side is also a judgment against that other person, which Heaven regards an ongoing judgment against you until you repent of that idea and get your thoughts straight.

Perhaps someone was trying to save your life, merely by punching you in the face to teach you to make peace quicker than make enemies. It may have been the wrong way, but that person might truly care about you deep inside. Talk. Verify. Listen. Check the logic of whatever conclusion you draw. Make sure your opinion is not just some phantom in your mind.

Trying to advance your position on the social ladder will backfire. Your progress faces two challenges: your faults and your need to grow. Growth comes with strength, which takes exercise, persistence, and time. Faults, however, come from damage that must be mended. If you try to elevate your status without dealing with these two, you will implode.

This actually explains the problems of many flawed leaders, the “head-scratcher” leaders of whom their suffering, subordinating staff ask, “How did this idiot get in charge with so many failing results?” It’s easy so see with a simple glance at what’s under the hood. Such a leader polished the bodywork, but neglected the frame and engine.

So-called “progress” with the social recognition, without growing in character first is only external. There is much more to building a car than buffing old paint.

The problem is temptation. Everyone feels the pressure to keep up with the exterior progress of those around us. It’s often called “peer pressure”. And, interestingly enough, most people paint their facade of “success” because of their neglected faults, usually to get back at a phantom haunting from childhood, if not to simply prove someone wrong.

Don’t be seduced by thirst to keep up with the Joneses; it will drive you to take shortcuts that shouldn’t be taken, receive favors that shouldn’t be given, and make deals at the expense of your soul. Then you will become that leader everyone loathes.

Don’t seek promotions; think thrice before accepting them. Focus on building your character, restoring whatever’s broken, and unloading whatever you’ve been carrying around in your trunk. By striving to be strong, whole, and valuable, that success you were created to desire will come looking for you. And, it will surely find you, once you are strong, solid, and lean enough that you won’t buckle under the pressure.

Success crushes a great many people. Delays may seem like setbacks, but self-destructing because you got too much power faster than you knew what to do with takes a lot more time than slow, foundational growth. Fame and position draw fierce enemies and strange complexities. Some extra time in the garage will make sure you’re ready for it.