In life, we either create value or destroy it. Sometimes we are so caught up in details that we miss the simple truths. Sometimes there are a thousand shades of grey, questionable deeds deeds done for noble-sounding causes, and a whole range of excuses and crutches. But when all is said and done, did you create something or destroy something?
‘Something’ can be money, or an idea. It can be somebody’s feelings or it can be a project you’re working on. Did you add value or let it stagnate and die. What I’m saying is, if it was your job to water a plant and you messed around digging, then odds are, you didn’t create anything except a hole. If you used the water on something else, then you destroyed.
Let me explain with some examples.
So you’re working on a project and you decide that you might get a promotion if you make your manager look bad… you’re a value destroyer.
Maybe you are an average worker who brings home a paycheck every fortnight. You pay your bills and save a little… You’re a value creator.
If your habit is to regularly put other people down… You are attacking their feelings and essentially destroying value.
If you accept handouts when you are fully capable of working… You’re consuming someone else’s hard-earned value which they worked for. In other words, you’re playing the role of destroyer.
Of course people can be both creators and destroyers at the same time, and most are. At the end of the day, the balances can be checked and weighed and it can be decided, but don’t worry. Nobody’s here to check or judge. Because on the whole, living a life of destruction is it’s own worst sentence. Attackers have a terrible time and their apparent victories are fleeting and momentary.
Worse than that, attacking and destroying devastates a person’s self-esteem. Nobody feels like a winner after tearing something down, be it an idea, writing graffiti on a wall or cashing that welfare check. Sure, at the time it was fun, but you don’t get any pride from doing it. As you insult and bring someone down, actually your own feeling are sinking further down. As you drag your heels at work, you start to form a resentment of those who don’t. As you despoil, steal and cheat, your own self-worth drops lower and lower. We all know in the end, you reap what you sow. But if you don’t sow anything and just reap, well you’re going to end up pretty grim. No joke.
We are all given to destruction from time to time. This fact is especially true when we are growing up. I myself, during my university years, from time to time I received a government handout to put food on my table, as opposed to getting a part-time job. Even after I finished, I got welfare while I didn’t have a job. Yet when I think back at the happiest times of my life it wasn’t getting something for nothing. I remember instead my first year at university, working an 11pm-3am shift at Safeway and bringing home my own money. Yes, I was tired and yes, it was hard combining it with uni, but it was my money. I was paying my own way and I felt independent for the first time in my life. It’s always these periods of industriousness that resonate with me proudly and the months of unearned cheques which I feel rather ashamed of.
And I guess most people are the same. Assuming you don’t go out of your way to break laws and lie, cheat and steal your way through life. And assuming you’re not the head of a huge self-made corporation, giving jobs to hundreds or thousands. Most likely you fall in the category of “average shmoe doing what they gotta do to make it”. You’re getting by, maybe even doing well, but your life is a mixture. Most of the time you earn your paycheck and don’t ask for handouts, but sometimes you’ll throw an insult someone else’s way, or you will ignore someone who obviously needs help because you’re late. You’re doing what you gotta do but no more. As for the few bad things, well everyone has vices.
That pretty much summarizes most of us. But the surprising thing is that when you go out of your way to really add value to something, to go the extra mile in relationships, in the professional world or at home, you will notice the big difference it makes. When you concentrate on what is valuable to the task at hand and seek to improve on it, the world opens up in ways you didn’t imagine.
We eat, sleep and survive based on someone’s hard work. A great many wonderful people have passed before us, laid the bricks and devised wonderful inventions and machines. The value they gave us is immense and we owe them so much. From the dawn of time, our survival has been based on the success to which we created and built. Nothing has magically changed since we got nice cars and computers. We still have the same requirements, just a different way of achieving them.
My advice: observe your words, actions and behavior with a critical eye. Did you add, detract or no nothing? Therein lies the answer to your troubles.
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I just discovered a really beautiful love song. It’s by Ben Folds, called ‘The Luckiest’. I put it in my music list so get the tissues and have a listen.
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