Effort or Character

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Recent events gave me reason once more to think about how backwards our society is when it comes to rewarding accomplishment. Between the Olympics and my own life, I see not only the disparity but also why people choose to live the ‘normal’ way rather than the way they probably ought. You see, we are all motivated by some kind of reward or value system, and most people, including sometimes myself, are too impatient to wait for better rewards later.

Most normal people are unaccustomed and ill equipped to give much of an effort. Yet, it is from those ranks that most of our heroes are acclaimed. These are typically average people who rise to the occasion and do more in a moment than they normally do or than society would expect of them. They are rewarded because, when the time came, their efforts bore fruit.

People like me face a unique predicament that is largely a losing proposition in modern society. We live our best most of the time. Sometimes, particularly when we are sad, tired, bored, or lonely, we fall. Rather than being praised for normally giving more than is expected or required, we are roasted for momentary lapses. Even if our normal activities bear good fruit in abundance, we are not recognized for that; we are only criticized for a bad crop.

Our society seems less interested in what is good than they are in effort. You are praised for trying, given awards for participating, for giving an effort. In essence, you either are sent to the podium for a good moment or hung for a poor one, without any regard for a lifetime of service. The same kind of misbegotten notion is related to the belief that you can repent on your deathbed of a lifetime of behavior, when your habits have made you a more or less permanent character.

We saw this in the Olympics. The top gymnast had a bad day, and received no medal for best all around. Her teammate, able to avail herself of the opportunity, shone. I think she deserves praise, but this sets us up for a fallacy of that whole hellish philosophy that “to be means to be in competition” or that “I can only achieve if I thrust you aside” or that “it’s a null sum game, and if I want, I must take from you”. Life is not a competition. Yet, people make an excuse to feel better, not because they have won, but because you have faltered. We all finish the race at the same rate- 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and what differentiates us is how we run along the way.

Everyone assumes I am playing a game and looks for evidence that I am too good to be true. They perceive that it takes very little effort to live a high standard. On the contrary, it takes a great deal. I have to prove every minute of every hour of every day that I mean it, because as soon as I fall, people assume that everything else was a ruse, a game, an angle. They require me to forgive them their momentary lapses and praise them for small moments of greatness while they ignore my normal greatness and accentuate the moments when I am human. It’s very diabolical. It’s a way for them to always have it their way.

I find it paradoxical that some of these people consider themselves Christians. As a central tenant of our common Faith, we believe that men are mortal and make mistakes, which is why a Savior was necessary. While they accord themselves forgiveness for egregious errors without repentance or even contrition, as soon as I acknowledge my unworthiness, they parade it around in the streets. It’s not about being better; it’s celebrating in the FACT that I will eventually falter. I become either saint, which is impossible, or scapegoat, a way for them to rationalize their aberrant and abhorrent behavior by hanging it around my neck whenever I do anything remotely human.

We are human. We all make mistakes. Doing something once can be an error; doing it again is a choice; continuing to do it makes it a character. Even Superman had his kryptonite. Even he needed someone unaffected to rescue him. Thank God for His Christ, that even I, who am just a man, may be made perfect through the Blood of the Lamb.