It's easier to be a 100%-er than a 98%-er.

[OtherCheek]

Clayton Christiansen's (Harvard Business Prof. for 30 years) new book ”How Will You Measure Your Life” is in the news lately. It's got some pretty good down-to-earth wisdom in it. He applies the lessons of business to life.

"The road to hell (and business failure) is paved with extenuating circumstances. In business this appears as the trap of marginal thinking. Companies fail because they apply their rules only most of the time and misprice the risk of doing so. People do the same thing–break the law, cheat on a spouse, backstab a client, take just one drink, fudge the numbers, obfuscate the truth–because the risk appears manageable at first. But nothing maintains a steady state. If you can justify going against your principles even once, what’s to stop you from doing it over and over
...
Ask any recovering alcoholic or addicted gambler or adulterer. They’ll tell you what Clay tells you: it’s easier to hold to one’s principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time. For kids graduating from college right now, this is the best time to engage in this personal reflection. Life, kids, careers and other pressures have a way of swallowing up time. Decide now what you stand for. Stand for it all the time.?"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupb...ake-every-day/

[Brown Cat]

That's a very thought-provoking OP and I'd like to respond to it but at present, time's a little short for me. I'd like to think about this awhile and hope to get back to this sometime later today or maybe even tomorrow morning.

By making a quick reply here this will go into my subscribed threads folder and I can get to it quicker.

[Sparko]

I agree with you 98% of the way.

[eudyptes]

I agree with you 98% of the way.

....100% of the time

[Brown Cat]

Clayton Christiansen's (Harvard Business Prof. for 30 years) new book ”How Will You Measure Your Life” is in the news lately. It's got some pretty good down-to-earth wisdom in it. He applies the lessons of business to life.

"The road to hell (and business failure) is paved with extenuating circumstances. In business this appears as the trap of marginal thinking. Companies fail because they apply their rules only most of the time and misprice the risk of doing so. People do the same thing–break the law, cheat on a spouse, backstab a client, take just one drink, fudge the numbers, obfuscate the truth–because the risk appears manageable at first. But nothing maintains a steady state. If you can justify going against your principles even once, what’s to stop you from doing it over and over
...
Ask any recovering alcoholic or addicted gambler or adulterer. They’ll tell you what Clay tells you: it’s easier to hold to one’s principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time. For kids graduating from college right now, this is the best time to engage in this personal reflection. Life, kids, careers and other pressures have a way of swallowing up time. Decide now what you stand for. Stand for it all the time.?"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupb...ake-every-day/

I don't know. Holding up one's principles 100% of the time is a practical impossibility for anyone. The best of us can never do it because we are fallen, sinful creatures living in a cursed world and eventually all of us compromise in some small way. For some these small compromises, e.g. little white lies, fudging the numbers lead from one thing to another and they can lead to disastrous consequences; Clay mentioned the example of Jeffrey Skilling in the video as an example. The Word of God commands us to keep a careful watch on our hearts for good reason because as Jeremiah 17:9 aptly describes it, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

One of the best examples I can think of is how the lives of biblical heroes are portrayed in the pages of Scripture. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't screw up at some point in his life. Abraham, Moses, Jacob, David (who God said was a man after His own heart), Simon Peter (the man with the foot shaped mouth) and even Paul the apostle (Acts 23:1-5) made their mistakes, some large, some not so much. It is a principle of Scripture when you break the law, the law breaks you and this is a good thing. It can help those of us who have a heart that longs for God to come to a place of repentance.

The key is having a heart and mind for God and this is only given to those who truly trust Christ as Savior and enthrone Him as Lord in their lives. There are lots and lots of pretenders out there; well described by a preacher I once heard as "professors but not possessors." There are those whose lives do not show the living Christ within and it's shamefully evident. For those of us who belong to Jesus, we become His sheep and a sheep who falls in mud will get out of it because it's not the nature of a sheep to wallow in the mud. But a cleaned-up hog will go back to the mud pit and roll around in there; that's his nature.

I believe the best we can do is to be constantly aware of our Lord. And when those times of temptation arise and when we slip that we go to Him immediately in confession and repentance. The worst thing would be to just keep going along with one sin leading to another as David did. Or as Achan in the book of Joshua; he looked (intently), he coveted, and then he took what he wasn't supposed to, with horrible results for not only him but his family. We need to just stay close to Jesus and keep the lines of communication open between us and Him.

[Cow Poke]

....100% of the time

sausage?

[Brown Cat]

Just one more thought for this thread...

you-are-the-99-why-you-not-100-thumb.jpg

Asian parents are so understanding