As Much Help As Needed

In my Business class, we learned about several management styles, including a management style that's really multiple styles rolled into one. This style assesses the abilities and needs of the team and then employs a style ranging from Directing to Coaching to Supporting to Delegating, depending on how much guidance and support the team members need. The idea is to give the team members as much direction as they need while giving them as much freedom and responsibility as they can handle.

This, I believe, is a good way to managed leadership responsibilities and the management of team members. Different people need different amounts of help with various aspects of their lives and at different times. Personally, I like it when I feel like I'm being given the amount of help that I need. I like getting the support I need, and I like it when I and others are confident that I can be trusted to work well, even with less direction. Sometimes, I need more help with certain things, and sometimes I can do better with less. It's all about finding the right balance and adjusting that balance as needed.

I should learn to do the same with my work. I'm a writing tutor, and some of my students need more assistance and/or support than others. I should adjust my tutoring method to fit my students, just as I hope my leaders (including God) adjust their methods for me.

We all need different amounts of help in different areas at different times. The best leaders provide their people with whatever amount of help they need.

Self-Mastery

In Disney's Aladdin, the titular beggar becomes the owner/master of a powerful, wish-granting genie, only to realize that he wasn't sure what to wish for. When Aladdin asked the genie what he would wish for, the genie ultimately answered, "Freedom. ...To be my own master. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world."

I completely agree with the genie. Being one's own master, gaining that level of self-mastery, is not only inherently desirable, but also spiritually essential. We need to gain mastery over ourselves, or our own habits or outside influences will become our masters instead. I want to gain self-mastery, and to that end, I am working to overcome undesired habits (like waiting too long to blog each day) and regulating others' influence over me.

Granted, we can't do away with habits altogether, as we are creatures of habit, and it would be unwise to never allow anyone to influence us, as it is wise to at least consider their advice, but we can still decide which habits we develop and which we break and which advisors we heed and which we disregard. That way, we become our own masters by choosing which habits we maintain and what advice we follow. Our habits and outside forces may try to influence us, but the final decision is ours.

Our habits and other people will try to master us, but ultimately, we must learn to master ourselves.

Anonymous Gifts

When we give gifts, we almost always label them. The box or tag almost always states both the giver and receiver of the gift. Yet, there are rare, special occasions when a gift can be given anonymously, and even rarer occasions when the recipient can be anonymous as well.

I think that occasions like those are special, because the giver knows not whom they're helping except that they're helping a child of God, and the receiver has no one but God to thank for the gift. 

Both giving and recieving anonymously are special opportunities to experience the love of God. Giving anonymously shows Godly love in that we show love for any/all of God's children. And recieving an anonymous gift helps remind us that all our blessings ultimately come from God, even if they come through others.

If you get a chance, I encourage you to give an anonymous gift this year, if you haven't already. It's good to know that you've shown love for someone, even and especially if neither you nor those you bless know who each other are.

Only Two Hands

My brother and I went for a walk today, and on our way back, we picked up litter. We would have picked up more, as there was plenty of litter to pick up, but we each only had two hands to carry it.

So it goes with most of life. There is only so much each of us can do. As such, all we can really do is do what we can and leave the rest to others and to God. My brother and I picked up a few pieces of litter today, maybe some people will pick up a few more, and so on. If enough of us do what we can, we can get the work done, no matter how little we can each do on our own.

My brother and I each have only two hands, and there are limits to what we can do, but if enough people lend their hands to the work that needs to be done, having two hands each will be enough.

The Spirit of the Rule

It's late. I'm late. But I've had good reasons. I had work this morning that went into the afternoon, and then I had other plans that took up my afternoon and into the evening. Now, it's late into the evening, and I have yet to blog. But I am slightly comforted in the knowledge that I am currently blogging about as early as I could have. The letter of the rule to blog earlier has been violated, but the spirit of the rule has not. I'll count that as a win.

In moral cases (though perhaps not in legal cases), the spirit of a rule matters much more than the letter. Granted, it is far better to obey both the letter and the spirit of the rule, but writing a thoughtful blog post as early as possible at 10:50 pm is probably better than wasting a whole morning doing nothing, typing out a quick blog post at 11:50 am, and squeaking it out just before noon.

Of course, I will try to follow both the letter and the spirit of the rule, but if I had to choose between doing one or the other, I hope I would choose the spirit.

Absolutely (Mostly) True

I think I need to stop getting hung up on precise wording. The Thirteenth Article of our Faith says, in part, that we "believe all things," which obviously isn't true. There are "things" (including principles, doctrines, and teachings, especially those of other faiths) that we don't believe. To say that "we believe all things" is so untrue that I wonder if there's context that the Thirteenth Article of Faith leaves out. Paul couldn't have meant that Christians do or should believe everything they hear or read.

Perhaps I should stop trying to take things so literally. I know that the church is supposed to be a source of absolute truth, but I find that many of the church's teachings are more generally true than absolutely true, like God being omnipotent, which is mostly true, but with a few specific exceptions. If I try to think of all of the church's teachings as being "mostly true" instead of "absolutely true," then any contradictions in the teachings of the church are merely rare exceptions to generally true statements instead of evidence that one statement or another must be false.

But the thing is, I shouldn't have to mentally add words like "most" and "usually" to statements coming from representatives of the church. They should have the diligence to include such qualifiers themselves. True, it may be necessary to oversimplify some Gospel topics so that we can understand them, but in such cases, the teachers should honestly admit that their teachings are necessarily oversimplified. If one presents an idea as being absolutely true, one should be careful to ensure that what they say is, in fact, absolutely true. Heck, even I try to only say true statements, even when I'm not claiming to be presenting the Word of God. I would hope that the Prophets and Apostles and everyone else who writes Scripture would choose their words at least a carefully as some guy with a blog.

But, given that they don't, I'll try to filter their words through a layer of qualifiers that will allow me to explain away any apparent contradictions in teachings, because the alternative is to doubt the teachers of "absolute truth" when I find out that what they're teaching is not actually absolutely true.

Baby Steps in the Right Direction

I remembered, on my ride back from D&D tonight, that I was supposed to blog before noon today. However, I would say that blogging at 7ish instead of near-midnight is something of a step in the right direction. And really, sometimes taking steps in the right direction is all we can ask of ourselves or others. Change takes time, and some changes take more time than others. I will change for the better, even if the change comes more slowly than I'd like. The good news is that, since we will be able to progress through the eternities, even small steps in the right direction can ultimately get us where we're going.

I've made a small improvement today. So long as this trend continues, I think I'll be okay.