A VICTORY FOR HUMANITY

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Horace Mann

In my early years I was handed down a pretty powerful concept: One day your life will review in a flash before your eyes . . . make sure it’s worth watching. We were encouraged to pursue ideas of personal responsibility and accountability. Our mom even gathered us around her in the evenings and read to us stories of character growth and development. We were expected to make the days of our lives count for something good. 

Because our mom was a school teacher and principal for most of her life, we heard about another educator named Horace Mann. Some of the effects the man had on standardized education were controversial. But over all, he left an indelible imprint on the American educational system that was positive and enduring. Horace Mann was born May 4, 1796, in Massachusetts. His frugal, rural upbringing taught Horace characteristics of self-reliance and independence. Between the years of ten to twenty, Horace had no more than six weeks' schooling during any year. But he took advantage of the new, local libraries. Eventually, he graduated from Brown University, went on to law school and was admitted to the Massachusetts legal bar. 

Mann became involved in Massachusetts politics and the development of the state’s public school system. At the time, American educators were fascinated by German educational trends. In 1843, Mann traveled to Germany to observe their educational system. Upon his return to the United States, he lobbied heavily to have the "Prussian model" adopted, arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined and judicious citizens. 

Building a person's character, Horace felt, was just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. By instilling values such as obedience to authority, promptness in attendance, and organizing time according to bell-ringing helped students prepare for future employment. He also developed the “normal schools” that specialized in training teachers. Most historians treat Mann as one of the most important and beneficial influences of educational reform in early America. He died while serving as president of Antioch College. He certainly lived out his own admonition to win some victory for humanity before you die and if his life did indeed flashed before his eyes before he died, his life was certainly worth watching! 
In the city of Owerri in Imo State, Nigeria, Project C.U.R.E. became involved in an educational and humanitarian opportunity to win a victory for humanity that could not be ignored. Honorable Ike Ibe, the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States, traveled from Washington, DC to Denver, Colorado, in 2003. The trip was to specifically request help from Project C.U.R.E. In 2000, King Eze A.N. Onyeka had already made me a Royal African Chief, “Chief Uzoma of Nkume People,” at a ceremony in Nigeria. Now, the country needed help. “We desperately need to relocate the university medical teaching hospital to Owerri, in Imo State. We have enough resources to build the buildings, but we have no way of furnishing the facility with beds, medical equipment, or supplies. We simply need everything to put inside a teaching hospital! Will you please help us?” 

After assessing the request, Project C.U.R.E. agreed to help them. Over the months, we processed and shipped nearly eight million dollars’ worth of desperately needed medical goods to the new University Teaching Hospital in Owerri. A huge miracle was taking place. In the late summer, I received word from Ambassador Ike Ibe that I should make plans to return to Owerri on November 30, 2004, for the grand celebration and commissioning of the beautiful, new hospital. Everyone who was important in that area of Africa would be attending. The president of Nigeria would be there, as would his cabinet, the governors, the university officials, and the tribal kings and royal chiefs. I would need to bring my royal chief regalia and be prepared to celebrate a modern miracle. 

I arrived in Lagos and was flown to Port Harcourt, then escorted by car to the city of Owerri, in Imo State. The evening before the day of celebration, the president of Nigeria hosted a lovely dinner at the hotel ballroom. The next morning my hosts arranged for me to view the new teaching hospital by myself. They escorted me through the front doors and into the beautiful reception rooms and down each hallway of the hospital. They were afraid that if they made me wait until the president and his entourage and all the press toured the facility, they would not have time to personally show me and properly thank Project C.U.R.E. for the impossible miracle. 

As I walked through each room and hallway, I was overwhelmed with emotion and a deep sense of satisfaction and gratitude. Immediately, I began to spot pieces of medical equipment and shelves loaded with supplies that had once been in our Project C.U.R.E. warehouses in the U.S. 

Examination tables, various diagnostic scopes, blood pressure equipment, needles, syringes, and wound care kits that had been carefully sorted and packed into large ocean-going cargo containers by Project C.U.R.E. volunteers now filled the offices and rooms of the out-patient department. The only mammography machine in that part of Africa had made it safely from Project C.U.R.E. in Nashville to Nigeria, and had already been installed by bio-med technicians. The large x-ray machine had already been installed and the portable x-ray machine was proudly displayed in the hallway leading to the operating rooms. 

I recognized the beds, the gurneys, the EKG machines, the defibrillators, the baby cribs and incubators, and all the items in the operating theaters. Everything had come from Project C.U.R.E. You can only imagine how terribly excited the doctors were when I came to their departments to share the moment with them. 

The nurses were in their best starched outfits and busily scampering around making sure everything would be perfect for the tour of the Nigerian president and the governor of Imo State. It was an unbelievable day of history and importance for the people of Imo State. They all knew as of Tuesday, November 30, 2004 that their hospital would be judged as one of the finest teaching hospitals in Africa. They proudly declared, “This now is the finest medical facility in Imo State and one of the best in Nigeria because of Project C.U.R.E.” 

We didn’t have to be ashamed. Project C.U.R.E. had not waited for some other day to win a victory for humanity. That teaching hospital would not only be the venue for saving thousands of lives in the next twenty years, but well trained doctors and nurses would go out from there to clinics and hospitals all over Africa to give health and hope to needy people. 

I stood there, and through the tears that filled my eyes, just that short portion of my life flashed before me . . . and it was well worth watching! 

REPUTATION BUILDING

When you set out to help other people build good reputations for themselves, a strange thing happens: you help build a good reputation for yourself. Work hard to tear down someone else’s reputation and you find that you have set into motion all the forces to see your own reputation destroyed. It all has to do with personal character. 

Reputation is how you would hope other people perceive you to be. Character is the real you. And it is absolutely beautiful when the two are the same. Socrates once said, “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” It is always a delight to meet someone face to face and discover there is no dissonance between that meeting and the person’s reputation. 

In the for-profit business world, as well as the not-for-profit business world, a sterling reputation is necessary. A good reputation will allow you to go places and do things otherwise impossible for one with a shoddy reputation. That sterling reputation is earned over time by constantly doing difficult things well.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Project C.U.R.E. organization is that we faithfully endeavor to help other people be better off. That written objective applies to our volunteers, our staff, our money donors, our in-kind donors, and most certainly the needy recipients of the medical goods around the world. It also includes our project partners; we surely want to see them better off.

When we partner with a Rotary club in our neighborhood or thousands of miles away, we enter into that relationship with the expressed idea of helping them end up better off. We try to take their gift and multiply it twenty times in value before it is delivered to the intended hospital or clinic on the other side of the world. We insist they receive the press photo opportunities and the accolades that might flow from the multiplied totals. We want their reputation for concern and goodwill to be multiplied and celebrated locally and internationally. 

Recently, we celebrated another First Ladies’ Luncheon in Denver. Nearly two thousand guests were in attendance at the Hyatt Regency Convention Center to welcome Dr. Maria da Luz Dai Guebuza, the First Lady of Mozambique. The luncheon is an annual fundraising event that brings awareness to the humanitarian e­fforts of First Ladies from around the world. The guests join together to learn about that particular First Lady’s key healthcare issues in her country, and raise funding to deliver life-saving medical supplies and equipment for approved health projects in her country.

At the most recent event, enough funding was received to deliver nearly $4 million worth of medical goods for the First Lady’s healthcare projects in Mozambique. Our desire in bringing the First Ladies all the way to Denver, Colorado, is to spotlight not only the needs of the country, but also display and enhance the character and reputation of the country, the officials, and the wonderful people of that sovereign nation. Reputation is the position that a country occupies in the world. That standing is the opinion of others throughout the world with respect to that country’s concern for their own people, their history of attainments, and their perceived local and international integrity.

Project C.U.R.E. loves to make other people better off. We can do that by helping them build a good reputation for themselves. The opportunity is not only there to showcase the current standing, but also to be the ones standing alongside, cheering and encouraging character growth and enhancement. That character development, then, serves to even further multiply the eminence of the honorable reputation. 

Project C.U.R.E. feels that it is imperative to help others build good reputations, and the time to become engaged is now. Henry Ford rendered some excellent advice: “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” We accept that challenge to do it now! And as for the rewards that come from helping others build good reputations . . . we are a very happy and thankful people! Our efforts to give goodness to others have returned goodness to us a thousand times over.

ASTOUNDING CAPABILITIES

I had a friend tell me once that he estimated that over eighty-five percent of the world’s populations spent their lives as underachievers. I joked with him and asked him to please help me find the other fifteen percent. I don’t think our conversation was very scientific. But, I have observed that nothing noble and splendid is achieved without someone deciding that deep within him was the possibility of passionately overcoming the impossible circumstances and breaking the inertia of nothingness. That dream, plus passionate diligence, translates into higher levels of achievement. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt said “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” The person who is afflicted with poor motivational health spreads the contagious affliction to others, and bears within him the symptoms of discouragement and poor self-esteem. But nothing can ultimately conquer the person who desires to achieve. Every obstacle works as a weight-machine in the gymnasium of life that develops the achievement muscle. The workout proves to strengthen the powers of accomplishment. 

It was Thomas A. Edison who reminded us, “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” Having laid hold of the possibility of the dream, we should mark out a direct pathway to achievement. We dare not look to the left or to the right or embrace doubts and fears that would cause us to veer from the course and become ineffectual. 

On one of my early trips to Ethiopia, I was introduced to one of the grandest stories and one of the most intriguing venues I had ever encountered. We left the old capital city of Axum, the ancient home and palatial ruins of the Queen of Sheba, and where I had also helped rename the main street of the city to “Denver Street” in honor of Axum’s new Colorado Sister City. We flew in a small aircraft almost directly south to the very center of the country of Ethiopia. Our destination was the ancient city of Lalibela, often referred to as the “New Jerusalem” of Africa. 

In the early 12th century, a baby boy was born to the royal family of Zagwe in the province of Wollo. At the time of his birth there was a dense cloud of bees that completely surrounded the baby and mother and brought honey for him to eat. The mother announced the bees to be soldiers who would one day serve her son just as they were now bringing protection and sweet sustenance to him. The mother named him Lalibela: "the bees recognize his sovereignty." 

But Lalibela had an older brother, Ile, who was threatened by all the adulation, and decided to poison Lalibela. But instead of killing Lalibela, the poison put him into a type of coma for a period of time. Later, Lalibela revealed that during his sleep the angels had taken him to heaven where Jesus Christ had given him instruction to build duplicates of the eleven early churches on either side of the Jordan River. Churches on one side of the Jordan represented the earthly Jerusalem, while those on the other side represented the heavenly Jerusalem. He was to build the churches far up on the stone hillside in the province of Wollo. 

In a matter of time Lalibela became king, and with the authority of the office set out to accomplish his mission. Within an unbelievably short period of twenty-three years, King Lalibela, with the help of his royal masons, chipped away and carved out eleven monolithic structures completely free-standing. To the very day of my visit nearly one-thousand years later, those hand hewn stone churches were still being used for worship.


By definition, monolithic simply means there were no cut stones stacked one upon another. The workers dug around the sides of the church, starting from the surface of the stone mountain that would ultimately become the roof. Once the entire outside of the church was carved out of the solid mountain, they chiseled doors and windows into the stone walls, entered inside and carved out the entire interior: arches, domed ceilings, altar areas, side rooms, and three dimensional carvings of the saints on the walls . . . all out of one solid mountain of stone. And, he did it eleven times!

The design and sheer magnitude of the task baffles all those who view the project even today. His contemporaries could not believe how fast he was able to not only carve out the churches, but also the stone stairways, tunnels, winding stone pathways connecting the churches, and even hidden monasteries and catacombs. Legend holds that Lalibela had the help of the angels working for him in order for such a task to be completed. King Lalibela worked by day; the angels worked by night. 

Lalibela was driven by zeal and compassion. He accomplished an impossible task that still stands today and rebukes the scoffers and naysayers of this world. 

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves as well as the world around us.

LEO TOLSTOY WASN'T IRISH

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, published in 1877, has been acclaimed “flawless as a work of art.” Even William Faulkner described it as “the best ever written” and in 2007, Time magazine’s J. Peder Zane polled 125 contemporary authors who declared Anna Karenina the “greatest novel ever written.” 

Tolstoy sets the stage for his epic Russian novel with his very first statement: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” With one broad stroke of the brush, Tolstoy covers a huge portion of canvas. He introduces the concepts of perception as well as exception.


However, in order for it to be judged as a happy marriage, the relationship must succeed in many different respects: sexual attraction, agreement about the handling of money, discipline of the children, in-law influence, religion, and other vital issues. Failure in any one of the essential respects can doom a marriage even if the marriage enjoys a lot of other ingredients necessary for perceived happiness. 

In real life we tend to seek easy, single factors to explain successes for the most important things, while success actually requires avoiding many possible causes of failure. Tolstoy’s parallel plots, covering nearly a thousand pages, give ample room for his many Russian characters to demonstrate how choices set into motion life-altering consequences. But it also makes the reader go back and consider just what does a happy family really look like, and what makes unhappy families unhappy in their own way? 

Recently, we spent about ten days on a trip to Ireland. I have roots in the Ulster region, north of Belfast. While driving through the thinly veiled political partitions of Ireland, I began thinking about Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Is it possible that happy nations are all alike; every unhappy nation is unhappy in its own way? I believe that Ireland is closer to being a happier nation now than it was when we first started visiting the shamrock island thirty years ago. But the noisy, jovial clink of the Guinness Stout mugs, or the hearty toast with a shot of Jameson Whiskey, belies the subtly suppressed angst and the frustrated irritability that continues to exist. Ireland is not necessarily a happy nation: tired of bombs? . . . Yes; tired of terror? . . . Yes; tired of innocent civilians being murdered? . . . Yes; enjoying the present fragile peace? . . . Yes, but not happy.

So, just what makes for an unhappy nation? Just what makes for an unhappy family? Just what makes for an unhappy individual? Is it possible that each is unhappy in his or her own way, but based on some similar and universal factors? 

After visiting all the economic and political hot spots in over 150 countries in the world in the past thirty years, I have become convinced that all global, national, corporate, and individual transformation takes place at the intersection of culture and economics. Those intersections are custom made, and each intersection has the equal possibility of conflict, and change, and happiness. 

Strife in Northern Ireland can be traced back to the 17th century, when the English finally subdued the island after successfully putting down a number of rebellions. The English and Scottish (Protestants) settled in Ulster somewhat apart from the rest of Ireland, (predominantly Catholic). Through the 19th century, the north and south grew even further apart due to economic differences. In the north, the standard of living rose as industry and manufacturing flourished. But in the south, unequal distribution of land and unfavorable laws resulted in a low standard of living for the large Catholic population. 

In the 20th century, Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring camps over the issue of Irish home rule. Most Irish Catholics desired complete independence from Britain, but Irish Protestants feared living in a country ruled by Roman Catholics. So, in 1920, the British passed the Government of Ireland Act, which divided Ireland into two separate political entities, each with some powers of self-government, and that is where the next eighty years of brawling and bloodshed began with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British forces locked in bitter struggle. Even the creating of the Irish Free State in 1949 as an independent republic, and leaving the six counties in Ulster as part of the United Kingdom, quelled the violence and bloodshed only temporarily. 

“The Troubles” as they are called, erupted in the 1960s, and terrorist violence tragically escalated until 2007. Peace efforts failed time and again. Finally, as recent as March, 2007, the leaders met face to face and worked out an agreement for a power-sharing plan. Tony Blair praised the historic deal. "Look back and we see centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred among the people of these islands," he said. "Look forward and we see the chance to shake off those heavy chains of history.” But it took until February 5, 2010, to even get the Hillsborough Castle Agreement signed. “Happiness” is very recent and extremely tentative in the islands of the Irish. 

Of course, novelist Leo Tolstoy was not Irish. He was Russian, and he wrote a treatise on his era’s Russia. But he writes universally, and paints with words his portraits of living, breathing characters that stood in their time at the intersection of culture and economics. They lived out their lives reaping the whirlwinds of consequences they themselves had set into motion by their life-choices. They dealt with hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city. Tolstoy doesn't explicitly moralize in the book; he allows his themes to emerge naturally, as his main characters complicate their lives in a broad array of unthinkable situations, and then leaves his readers to come to their own conclusions. Tolstoy allows his characters to debate significant cultural-economic issues affecting Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century, such issues as the place and role of the Russian peasant in society, education reform, and women's rights. 

Leo Tolstoy wasn’t writing about Ireland . . . but in a sense he was. And he was intuitively writing about happy and unhappy families, individuals, and nations everywhere, including America.

CRISIS REVEALS CHARACTER

The outright arrogance of the Soviet leadership occasionally caught me totally off-guard. One of the favorite sayings leveled at me as I traveled throughout the Soviet Union was Nothing ever goes wrong here, because nothing ever can go wrong here.If one of their Five Year Economic Plans failed miserably, or there was a costly industrial accident, there was an ingenious cover-up promoted, but never an admission of a mistake. That historic attitude spawned an international catastrophe in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine. 

The disaster took place during a systems test on April 26 when, due to faulty design and inappropriate and inefficient actions of the nuclear staff, an explosion and fire released immeasurable quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere. Sixty percent of the heavy fallout landed directly in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia; the rest was spread throughout the USSR and Europe over the following four years. 

The Soviet Union authorities in control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant tried to cover up the whole episode. They never warned the innocent plant workers of what was happening; the 3,000 military men who were sent in to control and clean up the mess were not informed of the risks; and the leadership simply delayed evacuating the 350,400 residents of the city of Prypiat and effected areas. Only after radiation levels set off alarms in Sweden, did the Soviet Union admit that an accident had occurred. 

No one will ever be able to accurately measure the past deaths or predict the future deaths resulting from the Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl Forum estimates that the eventual death toll could reach 204,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees, and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas. Among the billions of people worldwide who were exposed to the radioactive contamination from the disaster, nearly a million premature cancer deaths occurred in the years following1986. 

In June, 1996, I had a meeting in Minsk, Belarus, with a military commander named Peter Ivanovitsch. He had been a commander of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in 1986. On April 27, 1986, he was ordered to take 2,900 of his men into Chernobyl to help. When he returned from Chernobyl they noticed that they were all getting sick, but the communist government said that it was impossible their sickness had anything to do with Chernobyl, and dismissed their being sick as coincidence. Soon many if his men began to die. They organized themselves to try to help not only the invalids being left as a result of the disaster, but also to try to bring food and aid to the families of the rescuers who had already died.

The communists still refused to help, saying that their claims were not valid even though the men who went in on the rescue attempts were all seriously affected. The majority of the men had died by the time of my meeting with the commander. Peter was enlisting Project C.U.R.E.’s help to supply medical goods for the remaining families. He was forty-three years old, but knew he only had a very short time to live. 

My next meeting that day was with the Bishop of the Evangelical Union in Belarus. When the evacuation of Prypiat was taking place, there were a number of pastors who had accepted the challenge to go into the nuclear plant area and minister to the victims. They were pastors who had faced the oppression of the Soviet leaders in the past and had survived. The Bishop had warned them of the high risk involved, but the brave pastors traveled into the areas of heaviest radioactive fallout and ministered to the hurting people. Even though all those pastors died, they were the ones in the story that displayed true strength of character. 

Common logic would have us believe that character is developed in the time of crisis. I doubt that. Very little character was being built by the Soviet leadership during the Chernobyl disaster. We are tempted to say that in a time of crises we will rise to the occasion . . . probably not, unless we have been consistently developing strength of character before the crises. Pressure proves the product . . . crisis simply reveals the character.

Relinquishment

One of the greatest gifts ever offered to me was the insight that Life is way too short and too valuable to spend it on selfish pursuits of material accumulation and greed. I will be forever grateful that I was given a second chance at life. It was as if a King had purchased my life and had given it back to me when I was about thirty years old. I jumped at the chance, and I now realize that as a result of that gift I was able to sidestep a lot of unpleasant consequences in my life that would have been set into motion as a result of continuing my lifestyle of hard charging greed and accumulation. 

At the crux of that whole episode was the principle of relinquishment: the decision to let loose of my personal and exclusive rights to the use of my talents and abilities for selfish accumulation in favor of pursuing goodness and endeavors for helping other people become better off. Our culture and our own nature program us to accumulate, acquire, and hoard. But as Kenny Rogers used to sing, “you got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.” I was able to move from a life-philosophy ofgetting to one of giving. That is a world-changing difference. 

There was a certain mystery to it all. I had feared that in moving from getting to givingI would some way forfeit the entrepreneurial thrill of the adventure of life. I was wrong. I was challenged even more to expand my knowledge base and management skills in the pursuit of goodness. I needed to become the best technician possible in order to exponentially multiply the effectiveness of my efforts— but for a different reason. Instead of dealing with the nightmarish results of an adventure of greed and selfish manipulation, I found myself basking in the warm sunshine of true self-fulfillment and accomplishment. I was a happy man! 

In our “tea room” at our home in Evergreen I have, among many other memory-enhancing objects gathered from the four corners of the earth, a “knight” standing in shining armor.

During one of my flight segments between Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and Frankfurt, Germany, I began thinking about the idea of relinquishment and accomplishment and especially about the gratitude I feel for having received a second chance at life. I closed my eyes, there in my airplane seat, and thought about my suit of armor back home on display. I reached up and grabbed my pen and jotted down these words about relinquishment:

RELINQUISHMENT

 

         Since the King had bought my life that day, all the while of my life is spent

                In a jousting match of life vs. death, yes, a tournament calledRelinquishment.  

I mount my steed in armor gear with my helmet visor down in place

To block the view of outside things and force my focus on the race.

 

It always seems when the flag is dropped to start the deadly game,

                 I'm matched against the unbeatable foe who taunts me with his skill and fame.

              How shall I ever win this match with a smaller horse and a slight bent lance?

        My foe defeated his last nine men; I'm number ten without but a chance.

 

                  I study his horse and the length of stride. I notice his pomp from atop his mount

                I tell myself it's not flash or style, but who's left atop at the end will count.       

 This game in which I find myself is not a self‑pride thing                    

              I'll charge my foe with death in mind to serve up love and honor for my King.

 

The flag is dropped; the charge begins, in fury advances my foe.     

And through my visor I see his lance, I feel the thunderous blow      

And as we pass close to the rail I feel the bleeding wound,              

 But I tell myself I'm not finished yet; I am not yet flat on the ground. 

                                                             

I'm still atop; I turn my steed and spur for another charge.              

  My lance is level, my balance good, my foe seems now not so large.

  As we charge again, I feel his lance with a stinging hit to my arm.      

                 But our glancing blows their marks had missed and neither delivered its harm.

 

 One more charge as we turn again, our horses blow and snort.        

This is a contest of life and death not just a fanciful sport.                

          I've learned from rough encounters past to render up your foe quite dead.

    You aim at the chinks around the heart and leave quite alone the head.

 

      My lance, indeed, has found its mark; there was success within this try.

 He left an opening near his heart; he was holding his lance too high.

I wheel my horse before the King, I stand down in midst of pain.    

I see the blood on my saddle spilt, but my armor is sparking clean.

 

             Then comes the chalice and winner's wreath, the spoils of the victor's gain.

I take the trophy in my hand, but refuse all the glory and fame.      

I had not fought in the joust this day to win for myself a thing,        

         I had fought to the death the challenging foe to bring honor to my King.  

 

With satisfaction beyond compare I hand to the King my prize.       

     I see Him receive with a gracious hand; I see a smile within His eyes. 

 What else can I do for the King to express my gratitude,                 

But offer my life to his service grand with a surrendered attitude?   

 

What can I do with the things I receive, the trophies which to me are sent?

  I can give them to the King in an act of love . . .                                

                             In an act of Relinquishment.                                                                                                            Dr. James W. Jackson

The Main Thing

Steven R. Covey gives us some of the best advice available when he reminds us that “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” 

As a cultural economist, I deal continuously with the economic trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost. Everything that exists is a scarce commodity. That is not just to say that there is an immediate shortage of something—like we would refer to in the old simile that something is “as scarce as hen’s teeth”—because there aren’t any hen’s teeth. But something is deemed scarce because everything that exists has alternative uses. People have unlimited wants and needs and they can come up with more uses for the capital or commodities than those resources in existence. Scarcity is called the “basic economic problem,” meaning that the problem always exists. 

Ultimately, a choice has to be made to determine how a resource will be used. People have to choose the alternative they most highly desire. Sometimes, it is thought that cost deals only with dollars and cents. But in a truer sense, the cost of the alternative you choose is the loss of the value of the next highest alternative that was foregone in selecting it. In other words, the real cost is the value of the alternative you could have had but decided to do without. 

When we talk about the admonition “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing,” we are dealing with the subject of priorities, which is the arrangement of precedence and preference regarding certain resources, supplies, or services. We first have to decide what is the main thing? Secondly, we have to decide to keep that main thing at the top of our priority ranking. 

Consistent priority ranking is a difficult assignment on a personal basis. It is even a tougher assignment on an international and cultural basis. Let me share a situation with you from my travel journals: 

Shortly after the tragic genocide situation in Rwanda, I traveled in a Volkswagen van from Kampala, Uganda, to Kigali, Rwanda. There had been over one million people murdered in the short span of 100 days during the Hutu-Tutsi slaughter. It was one of the most heart-breaking incidents I had experienced in over thirty years of international travel. Limbs of dead bodies still protruded out of shallow graves. The economy was in shambles, and all was chaos. For the most part, the world totally ignored the tragedy and even the UN and the US refused to use the word “genocide” and chose not to send help. Project C.U.R.E. went there to help. 

Upon my arrival in Kigali, I met with a lady named Christine. She was in her thirties, very knowledgeable and articulate and was in charge of administering the offices of the cabinet members. She was openly supportive and appreciative of Project C.U.R.E., and I presented to her the inventory list of the cargo container from Project C.U.R.E. that had just arrived. She took the time to brief me on the genocide situation and I asked her if she had stayed in the country or fled to another country. She said that she had stayed in Kigali, and had witnessed the bloody attacks on the innocent citizens. 

Christine also acted as the Minister of Rehabilitation and Social In­tegration. She asked about crutches, wheelchairs, and prosthetic equipment for those who had been left disabled by the war. They were in desperate need, and no one else was coming to their aid. A million people had been murdered, and there were hundreds of thousands of other suffering human victims. 

I expressed my surprise that others were not quickly coming to their aid: “While I have been in Kigali, I have seen scores of new, white Toyota Land Cruisers and new Land Rovers driving the streets of the city with the fanciest and newest of optional equipment added on. I have seen many NGO personnel sitting and conversing in the restaurants of Kigali. I just presumed that all those resources had arrived in Rwanda to aid in the horrible genocide crisis.” 

Christine hesitated, then turned and looked out the window. “I’m sorry you saw that. No, those new resources and personnel are not here to bring help to the victims of the genocide. They have come as a result of a new grant of over fifty million dollars to further the ongoing study of the eating, mating, and sleeping habits of the gorillas in our forests. I wish there were some way to get our priorities straight.” 

Keeping the main thing the main thing sometimes becomes a knotty problem. As mentioned earlier, we are the ones that ultimately have to make the decisions regarding the arrangement of precedence and preference of all resources, supplies, or services. People have unlimited wants and needs and they can come up with more uses for the capital or commodities than those resources in existence. But the old economic trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost can help us remember that we first have to decide what the main thing is and secondly, we have to decide to keep that main thing at the top of our priority ranking.

DELAYED GRATIFICATION

The one thing we do know about instant gratification is that we can’t quite experience it soon enough. Our culture seems to claim a birthright for instant and lavish gratification. Delayed gratification, however, is one of the keys to cultural well-being. Overcoming the demand for instant gratification is necessary for healthy achievement and fulfillment on a personal level as well as a cultural level. 

We can experience a world of difference when we are no longer addicted to indulging in instant gratification on our way to a larger and more meaningful reward. Delayed gratification can be thought of as instant gratification saved and leveraged for later usage. When gratification is delayed, we are indirectly saying that we can handle the lack of a reward now, and that we are confident of the benefits that will be coming our way later on. That confidence involves informing our mind, emotion, and will that it is worth persisting toward the greater goal even at the expense of not consuming the immediate gratification. 

I witnessed one of the most impressive examples of the principle of delayed gratification in Africa while on a Safari in the Masai Mara of Kenya. At the break of dawn, we quickly gulped our coffee and loaded into the game van to shoot some photos of the magnificent birds and animals of the Mara in their early morning activities. 

Almost immediately upon leaving camp, we began seeing hundreds of wildebeests, Thompson gazelles, warthogs, zebras, impala, topi, and Cape buffalo. We were even fortunate enough to get some shots of two black rhinoceroses . . . then came the thrill. We spotted a mature male lion and a young female just returning to their pride following a night of hunting. They encountered a large herd of Cape buffalo beginning their day of grazing. The buffalos had assigned huge male sentinels to the edge of the herd to warn and protect the others. 

As we viewed the ordeal from our safari van, the male lion carefully stalked the buffalo guard. They paired off staring at each other. The buffalo began to snort and bellow and paw the ground, throwing his head of massive horns from side to side. But the male lion was not to be intimidated. He just began circling the big bull. Meanwhile, the young lioness began to creep into the scene. Now, the buffalo was confused as to which he should watch. Several times he bellowed, lowered his head and charged the male lion. The male lion retreated a few paces as the female crept closer. When she got too close, the buffalo charged at her to move her back. At that moment the male lion attacked the bull from the rear by jumping high onto the tail of the bull. The lion sank his sharp teeth into the bull, ripping the hide and laying open the back bone section about eight inches above the tail. The bull was temporarily paralyzed. As quick as lightening, the female was back at the tail with the male, and they each grabbed a jaw full of upper vertebra. The big bull went down, sitting like a dog unable to move. That allowed for the lion’s unguarded access to the bull. Right then an unusual thing happened. Without any apparent reason, the lions backed off and stood looking at the helpless bull, as if to say, "Get up and keep walking around. We have confidence that we've got you but we will discipline ourselves and not kill and eat you now. We will wait and have fresh, juicy meat at our own discretion.” They escorted the big Cape buffalo over to the thick savanna grass and laid down, one on either side of the bull. They would simply delay their gratification and multiply their enjoyment by postponing their consumption. They didn’t need a refrigerator to keep the meat fresh; all they needed to do was to keep the huge bull alive until they were hungry. 

The emotional mastery of impulsive indulgence is also necessary to overcome the majority of personal problems people encounter. Overwhelming debt, crime, obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, the breakdown of personal relationships, and the selfish violation of intimate trust have their roots in the inability to practice delayed gratification. There is not a long-term positive correlation between quick rewards and positive benefits. I personally believe that even in business the characteristic that best defines an entrepreneur is the ability to utilize the concept of delayed gratification. 

Stanford University professor, Walter Mischel, tested four-year-old kids on their impulsive indulgence behavior and delayed gratification. The children were asked to stay in a room together for fifteen minutes with a marshmallow in front of each child. If they hadn’t eaten the marshmallow after fifteen minutes, they would get another one. So they would get two in total. Two thirds of the students ate their marshmallow, and only a third lasted the fifteen minutes. They followed up fourteen years later and learned that all of the children who were able to delay gratification had good grades, good prospects, and good relationships with their teachers. The average SAT score of those that had waited to get two marshmallows was 210 points higher than the others. In the study, delayed gratification was related to people being self-reliant, trustworthy, dependable, eager to learn, able to cope with frustration, and more competent academically. On the other hand, accepting instant gratification was associated with people that were more likely to be indecisive, stubborn, impulsive, overwhelmed by stress, prone to jealousy, envy, and a lower self-image. If you are a business person, a student, a parent, or any other participant in our culture, the subject of delayed gratification merits a second look. Who knows . . . maybe you could end up with even more than one additional marshmallow?

TAKING THE RISK

The very fact that you are alive tells me that you are encountering risks. Leo Buscaglia, the late inspirational speaker known as “Dr. Love,” claimed, “The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom. Only the person who risks is truly free.” We usually describe risk as being a state of uncertainty where there are possibilities of loss, catastrophe, or other undesirable outcomes. Of course, the other side of risk includes the possibilities of gaining something of value to you. 

When I was young and starting out in business, I always felt that I could well afford to run the risks of failure, because in failure I really didn’t have that much to lose. I could take the lumps, count the costs, pick up the pieces, and start over again. I didn’t mind going out on a limb, because that was where the fruit was growing. My attitude was that if I pushed to the very brink, I would be shown a way to proceed on the ground, or else I would be taught how to fly. After all, how was I to know how far I could go in a venture if I hadn’t run the risk of going too far? 

But the more I accumulated, the more the idea of risk became an issue. The more I had to lose, the more I seriously considered my options, choices, and consequences. I learned several times that I was very vulnerable and had a lot to lose. That prompted me to start developing some skills of risk assessment and some practices of risk aversion. I was discovering that in my business dealings I was developing arisk attitude, and I began measuring my decisions against a rather clumsy gauge ofrate of gain vs. rate of ruin. Somewhere in the adventure, I was being exposed to concepts like fear of loss and regret. 

When I became involved in international business and traveling with Project C.U.R.E., I was glad I had learned some things about risk-taking. There were situations in Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Palestine, Russia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and even Kenya, where the risks involved my very life and safety. It was God’s protection, some carefully made decisions, and the help of many friends in over 150 countries, that averted the serious consequences of some of those perilous risks.

In one of my Project C.U.R.E. offices, I had a map of the world affixed to the wall. One day I made a statement to the people visiting me: “If you were to stand on this side of the room and throw a dart at the map, providing the dart did not land on water or snow, within a three inch radius of the dart I would have a friend who would be willing to risk his life to help me out of danger.” 

That was a rather audacious statement, I know. But it was based on the fact that I had worked in nearly every corner of the world, and the unusually positive influence of Project C.U.R.E. had enabled me to develop many deep-rooted relationships with people who would have put themselves in harm’s way to come to my rescue. 

Taking a risk is an interesting concept. It includes the possibility of loss, injury, or at least the inconvenience of an imposing circumstance. And there is a notion thatchoice has something to do with whether or not the outcome is altered. Risk-taking can get complicated. The consequences of my risks can splash over into other people’s lives around me and affect their lives and well-being. We are hardly ever isolated, stand-alone objects in situations that include risks. The consequences set into motion by our choices will usually invade the lifestyles of our family and friends. In reflecting on my statement regarding the map in my office, I realize that I probably would have been in a high-risk circumstance, or there would have been no need for someone to come and help me. The willingness of my friends to come to my rescue would imply that they would be placing themselves in a risk-taking situation because I was already in trouble. 

Our culture teaches us to seek the position of safety and security, but as Mark Twain used to say, “Necessity is the mother of taking chances.” And I am in theologian Paul Tillich’s corner when he says, “He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.” 

I personally believe that no noble thing can be accomplished without taking risks, andordinary people can do extraordinary things if they are encouraged in the confidence to stand tall and fully engage those calculated risks.

ALL THAT IS NOT GIVEN IS LOST

One of the universal principles of stewardship is that I can hold on too tightly and lose everything, but it is possible to give away and become richer. The spirit of selfishness and hoarding trumps wisdom and blocks me from the subtle insights as to what and when I should let go. The tighter I grasp on to something, the more I squeeze it right through my fingers and it is gone. This principle is equally true for corporations, institutions, and individuals. Stewardship and benevolence just make good sense and good business. 

By watering other people, and reaching out to meet their needs, we actually water ourselves. What we hoard we lose; what we give away and plant in the lives of others returns to us in multiplied measure. And in the final analysis, all that is not given away is lost. Project C.U.R.E. is one of the best examples of how this principle works out every day in the real world. 

In the business model and operations of Project C.U.R.E., we are dependent upon donations from other people and institutions. The thousands of lives that are saved through the efforts of Project C.U.R.E. are a direct result of the benevolence of others. We go directly to medical manufacturers, medical wholesale businesses and end users of medical goods, and work with them. In a joint effort we collect, process, inventory, warehouse, and distribute those medical supplies and pieces of medical equipment to needy hospitals and medical clinics around the world. We openly explain the benefits to them and their businesses by our working together. Then we ask them directly to donate to us from their inventories. They believe in us and the cause we represent, and for the past twenty-five years they have generously given to us.

The medical industry is very special and unique in that it deals with extremely time-sensitive inventories. The majority of items we receive are marked with an expiration date. When we receive the donated inventories, we do not have the option or latitude to take our jolly-good time to process and deliver the goods to the needy international recipients. We are always under the time gun, and we must be good stewards of what we are given in order to maximize the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. 

It would be absolutely and criminally ridiculous for us to receive those donated inventories, put them on our warehouse racks, and say, “Oh, look at us and see how very wealthy we are with all the millions of dollars of goods we have in our warehouses.” Those goods were given to us to distribute to those with imperative need. We accept the responsibility of being trustworthy stewards. If we hoard the things that were given to us, and we simply sit on those valuable gifts, and they go right past the expiration dates for usefulness, we have then breeched our fiduciary responsibilities, and we are accountable. 

It is not a whole lot different with the valuable inventories of our personal lives that we have so generously received. And, like the time-sensitive medical inventories in Project C.U.R.E.’s warehouses, our personal talents and possessions are likewise time sensitive. All of our clocks are ticking—just in case you hadn’t noticed. Your personal inventories are overflowing, even if you don’t feel so wealthy today. 

What I hoard I lose. All that is not given away is lost. What I grasp too tightly, I squeeze right through my fingers and it is gone. But what I give away and plant in the lives of others returns to me in multiplied measure. As much as Project C.U.R.E. gives away each year, every time I walk through our warehouses there is more there than before. By watering other people and reaching out to meet their needs we actually water ourselves. We can hold on too tightly and lose everything, but it is possible to give away and become richer: richer in relationships; richer in quality of life; richer in personal expression, experience, and maturity; richer in wisdom; richer in more than money, but in true wealth, in the things that matter most in this life. 

Author, Oswald Chambers reminds us:                 

Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others.