Contributed the following article to the August 2011 issue of VANAMUTHAM,
a Tamil Christian Monthly magazine published by Serve India Mission,
that attempts to connect the world (with its events and practical issues) to God's word.
Year 2010 saw
several scandals break out and much corruption in high places coming to
light. Scams around expenses made for
organizing the Common Wealth Games, around allocation of 2G spectrum to mobile
service providers, around politicians, bureaucrats and even ex-army officials
procuring Adarsh flats meant for 26/11 martyrs, around land grabbing in the
mineral-rich parts of Karnataka and so on.
Just the previous year, India saw the biggest
fraud in the corporate history – Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers had fudged
account books over a decade. It is not
that corruption has suddenly let out shoots.
It has been there for eons and what we see reflected in the highest
places of political, social and corporate power is but a reflection of the
social fabric that these individuals come from. We are all guilty of corruption
and if we do not watch out, we could end up like them in our own spheres of
influence and activity.
How do we stay away from becoming perpetrators of
such corruption that often has a small insignificant start but slowly begins to
work out like rust and finally leads to rot?
We need to protect ourselves like Daniel
and his three friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah better known as Shadrach,
Mesach and Abednego. They determined
that they would not defile themselves with the King’s food. To many of us, had we been put in the same
predicament, it would not even have looked like defilement. We would have come up with 10 reasons why we
cannot forego the King’s food. We might
even have come up with 10 good reasons why we need to indeed partake of the
Royal Menu with the rest of the Jewish Royalty that was undergoing training. Most of us try to see how closer we can get
to the line separating evil from good, and stay uncontaminated. Daniel on the other hand, was one who tried
to stay as far as he could from the thin dividing line so that he does not even
by a remote chance pollute himself.
Eric
Liddell, the famed sprinter-missionary had similar discipline. His moral conviction did not permit him to
participate in Sports on the Lord’s Day.
He therefore refused to participate in the Heat for the 100 meters race which
he was widely expected to win at the 1924 Paris Olympics, having set a record
of 9.7 sec in the AAA championship the previous year. He instead regimentally prepared for the 400
meters event, even while having already decided to go to China as a Missionary.
He would pummel himself so much in preparation for an event that he was not
used to, even against a strong possibility of not succeeding at it, but would
not compromise on his commitment concerning Sundays. As history would have it, he broke the
previous Olympic record and won the middle-distance event of 400 meters in
style, though he was not expected to win in this category.
The point is not about whether it is wrong to play
on Sunday. With Daniel too, the point is
not about whether it was a sin to eat
the King’s food that probably did not adhere to Kosher rules, or had likely
been offered to idols or had intoxicating drink. It is about whether we stick to our moral
convictions or do we sidestep them for some allurements. Most
people who have long gone into the wrong side of life have trained their
appetite with ideas and decisions that have restructured their thought of what
they need. By redefining in their minds what it is they think they need,
they end up hungering after the wrong things and these wrong things end up
ultimately devouring them. Daniel
decided to train his appetite by not letting it get used to the lavishness of
the King’s table and getting his taste spoiled.
Clayton
M. Christensen, a 1979 Harvard Business School
graduate and author of ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’ says that everyone has to address
the question, “How can I be sure I’ll
stay out of Jail?” He reminds us that 2 out of 32 people in his Rhodes
Scholar class of 1977 (Awards for outstanding all-round students at the
University of Oxford) spent time in Jail.
He tells us that we often unconsciously employ the ‘marginal cost’
economics doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and
wrong. We think, “I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating
circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing a wrong
thing ‘just this once’ seems alluringly low.
It sucks you in and you fail to look at where the path is ultimately
headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty
in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this
once”.
Clayton too has had a ‘Eric Liddell’ like experience
and discipline about what he will do on Sundays. The Oxford University varsity basketball team
that he played on had become the best of friends and had made it to the final
four in the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament. While it turned out that
the championship game was to be played on a Sunday, he went to the coach and
explained that he had made a personal commitment at age 16 never to play ball
on Sunday. The coach and the teammates just could not believe it and said “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule
just this one time?” He went away,
prayed about it and decided that he shouldn’t break his commitment.
Looking back at that small decision, involving just
one of several thousand Sundays in his life, he says, resisting the temptation
of ‘Just this once in this extenuating circumstance’ has proven to be one of
the most important decisions of his life.
His life as anyone else’s has been one unending stream on circumstances
justifying mistakes. Had he crossed the
line that one time, he would have done it over and over in the years that
followed. He learned that it is easier to hold to your principles
100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If we give in to “just this once” we’ll
regret where we end up. That’s what
happened to Jeff Skilling of Enron fame, Clayton’s classmate at Harvard
Business School.
