By Marvin A. McMickle
This is our world – no matter how well you did this year, you hope to do even better next year. When things move backward or downward or even remain the same we wonder what went wrong. In almost every area of human life the desired direction is always the same: upward.
So pervasive is this expectation of moving ever upward that we have fashioned terms by which we define and describe people who fail to show steady and constant progress. We use such terms as “underachiever” or “low performance” or “unproductive.” When these terms are directed at any one of us we know one thing for sure – our work is not being applauded and our performance is not being approved. When our annual evaluation is handed to us, these are not the words we are looking forward to reading.
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I recall one year when the Board of Deacons handed me an annual evaluation for my work here as Senior Pastor. I was reading along as they gave me high marks in one area after another. I got an “A” in a certain area of work and an “A” in another area of work, and it went on that way for several pages. Then I turned to a page and saw this “B” staring me in the face. Now a “B” is not a bad grade. “B” is not a failing grade. “B” means better than average in performance. But when you are looking for straight “A”s in your evaluation you are not satisfied even with a “B,”much less an even lower grade. It became my goal to avoid ever getting another “B” in any area of my performance! I do not think that I am alone in my desire to live a life that allows me to move ahead, move up and avoid moving in any downward direction.
Sometimes in our desire to achieve at a higher and higher level we may be tempted into doing some things that are wrong and things we live to regret. Last fall the track star Marion Jones acknowledged that she had, indeed, used banned substances when she competed in the 2000 Olympic Games. She won five medals at the games in Sydney, Australia – three gold medals and two bronze medals. It had long been rumored that she been using steroids or some other performance-enhancing drugs, but for seven years she vehemently denied using any banned substances.
Then she suddenly decided to tell the truth – she had been using those illegal substances. She wanted to achieve her goal of winning Olympic medals. She wanted to come in first place. She wanted to perform better than everybody else on the field. That was the culture in which she operated and that was the idea floating around in her mind.
Now the truth has come out and she has to return all of her medals and have her name removed from the record books. Since one of her races was as part of a relay team, all of her teammates in that race may also be stripped of their medals because of her substance abuse. Our culture drives us to achieve, to advance, to be the best, to come out on top. Sometimes in pursuit of that objective we do things we should not do.