What Counts?

For variable periods, we all can “go through the motions” and slough through meeting minimum expectations – just doing enough to prevent us from missing an advance to the next grade or getting fired. 

Unfortunately, it can’t last indefinitely.  In fact, minimal doesn’t really “count”.  There’s “minimal” expectations and there’s “full potential” expectations.  You don’t get extra points – or any points at all – for simply showing up and being “open for business”, being a year older, taking up space, depleting the planet of forage and contributing to landfills. 

What “counts” is what you go “out of your way” to make happen BEYOND minimal expectations.  Minimal expectations are a given.  If you don’t do minimal, there will be Hell to pay somewhere down the road.  That could translate into being “passed over”, fired, divorced, foreclosed, bankrupt, or worse.  And the minimum is generally a significant bit higher than we can reach without stretching. 

The least we can do is apply ourselves to the best of our ability.  That’s where “counting” begins. 

Grades count.  Cs and Ds won’t cut it.  An occasional C or D in a subject you simply “can’t get” might be overlooked if balanced by As and Bs in everything else.  Top grades mean that you have high standards for yourself and are willing and able to meet both those standards and the standards set for you by others – whatever it takes.  Very few of any consequence are interested in hiring or associating with individuals who have low or mediocre standards and can’t or won’t meet the general standards of the marketplace.  Sure, five years after you get the degree, it may not matter what grades you got in high school or college.  But these formative years establish a reference base and ingrain patterns of behavior that fingerprint our “fitness” for matriculation in the world at large for the duration. 

Making ourselves useful – and, at the very least, “sanctionable” – counts.  Our best anchoring – in the home, in the workplace or in any social context – is to be the “GO TO” person for something of value.  Being “entertaining” is cute, and being a “social butterfly” can be fun, and being a “victim” might get you occasional sympathy, but it’s what gets out the door and on the street with competitive customer buy-in that allows us to come back for more.  However, becoming a sine qua non cog in the wheel of progress [see also “Owner-Driver” summation] assures us a place in the Grand Scheme of things and – as an added bonus – creates sine qua non choices.  

Testimonials count.  A glowing recommendation can open more doors than the most carefully crafted résumé. 

At my mother’s memorial service, a still, small voice could be heard echoing in my head saying: “Who will stand and speak on my behalf at this time of reckoning?”  I was surprised and delighted to see how many did stand and speak eloquently on her behalf.  It was a much longer service than we had planned for!

Each of us has “reckonings” that can appear in the most untimely and unlikely of circumstances.  We need to have plowed the ground and tilled the soil and cultivated the harvest of accomplishments and testimonials that will carry us through even the worst of reckonings.  One of my former bosses claimed that the thing one most needs in the marketplace is an expert in the field putting his arm around our shoulder and saying to the world: “This person gets it done and is held in highest esteem!”  Make it so for you. 

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you.”

Henry Ward Beecher