The Painful Truth!

Chapter 12 of Orrin Woodward's book, "Resolved," has an outstanding quote from Author Robert Grudin that needs to be shared.

" Modern society has evolved an idiomatic defense of non-achievement so subtle and elegant that it almost makes failure attractive. We can equivocate with failure by saying that we could not stand the "pressure". We can inflate mediocrity by calling "cow colleges" universities, by naming herds of "middle-level executives" vice presidents or partners, and by a thousand other sorts of venial hype. We can invert the moral standard by defending fellow non-achievers as being too sensitive or even too good for the chosen arena. this double rejection of pain- a surrender sanctified by a euphemism- has in our time achieved institutional status. Because it includes it's own anti-morality, it can be passed on with pride from generation to generation. Other ages may have been full of non-achievers as ours, but no other age, I believe, has developed so comprehensive a rhetoric of failure. To conclude, the; those people in quest of intellectual dignity and independence in the late twentieth century must act in a cultural context that has done it's best to annul or camouflage one of the key elements in the quest, the challenge of pain. for this reason such people currently labor under a double burden: they must face the pains inherent with their task, and they must do so in a culture that has little appreciation for their suffering."

I had to read that several times to get the full effect. The ironic thing about it is, it's a painful statement in itself. While I'm currently attempting to practice relaying everything in a spirit of love, this dose of truth would be difficult for me to directly present to someone, but pointing one to a dose of the truth, as painful as confronting it might be, is in fact an act of love. And this my friends is the painful truth! One we are trying to confront in our leadership journey. I hope you enjoyed this dose of reality as much as I did. The solutions lies in a change in our culture, fueled by the information contained in a LIFE subscription!

God Bless!
Capt. Bill