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Examine
yourself
By DR Teodoro
I always examine myself, and I do it by pondering.
For me, pondering deepens one’s insight, clears
one’s vision and illumines one’s soul.
In my situation, I do it for the following reasons:
it enables me to come up with alternative courses
of action in solving business problems
it crystallizes my approach in executive decision-making
and it refines the implementation of the decision
that was reached, especially those baffling and
inter-related issues with multiple implications
and cost consequences that ultimately affect organizational
goals and corporate profitability.
My unconscious mind automatically shifts to this
paradigm for I know very well that I am not supposed
to commit mistakes in business decision-making.
The axiom that “business mistakes are very
costly and deplorable” is a harsh reality
for business practitioners. Moreover, the veracity
of this statement becomes more so when the money
involved is not O.P.M. (other peoples’ money)
but your own money. However, when you begin to factor
out the “men” variable in the overall
equation, synthesizing inputs, objectives and realities
out there, it becomes, not only sensitively intricate
but dauntingly complex. For while errors in business
decision-making are costly and deplorable, errors
involving lives are dangerous to life itself.
Through reflection--weighing, considering and evaluating
to avoid errors in decision- making, I realized
my own humanity, vulnerability and limit. I discovered
how scary it is for me to place my own self face-to-face
with me. If I’m going to be true and consistent
with my own autobiography, my belief in life should
match my behavior in life. Could it be then, that
people do not “practice what they preach,
nor preach what they practice” because the
lives they live expose them to what and who they
really are?
For example, that well-known philosophical precept
of Socrates that “an unexamined life is not
worth living,” and St. Paul’s theological
articulation that we must “examine ourselves,
whether ye be in the faith and prove your own selves”
are philosophies that not only influence our beliefs,
values and ethics but also determine our perceptions,
aspirations and motivations in life (2Cor. 13:5).
In other words, our emotional, political and social
make-up also influences our view points. Since both
Socrates and St. Paul belong to the “religious
Weltanschauung” (Sigmund Freud’s The
Question of Weltanschauung), and both believe in
the existence of God, their viewpoints are still
mutually exclusive. While the nitty-gritty of self-examination
through probing and pondering may deepen our insight,
expose errors and lead us to ascertaining truth
in all its shining beauty, the most frightening
part is that the same examination may bring us to
the stark reality of our own emptiness, drudgeries,
anxieties and broken dreams glaring at us with eyes
wide-open. The truth, that a lot of people disdain
self-examination for fear that they may be confronted
with their own meaningless and purposeless existence,
is not far-fetched. Furthermore, some people can’t
handle this truth, so they escape to avoid the pain.
I guess Socrates was ahead of his time if his “examined
life” led to critical thinking and capacity
to change.
St. Paul, on the other hand, theorized that life
can become a mere existence when we are no longer
“in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5 –
Authorized King James Version). For if we are in
the faith so to speak, no matter what happens, we
are absolutely certain that we can engage life as
is, without fear of anything, not even the unknown,
for faith surpasses knowledge and understanding,
and faith is anchored on the believers motto, “Thus
saith the Lord.” The old but beautiful gospel
hymn says it all, and I quote, “I’ve
an anchor safe and sure, that forever more endure.”
Dr. Luke, the apostle, puts it this way in his letter
to the Hebrews, “Faith is being sure of what
we hope for and certain of what we do not see,”
(Hebrews 11:1 -NIV). For if we are not in the faith
anymore, then life is not worth living indeed. Prudence
dictates that faith is the best antidote for fear.
Fear, relegated to the pigment of our imagination
which merely exists in our minds outside our real
being, is countered with faith which metamorphoses
into courage, and so we are not frightened anymore
of who we are or who we are not, nor anxious of
what we are or what we are not. In the end, that
moral courage to live his belief brought about by
faith in the Almighty, sustained Socrates in choosing
death rather than recant his principle. At the onset,
there was no sublimity in the primary stages of
his intention while in the process of examining
his life, nonetheless, he found courage and it became
the sustainer of all other virtues.
As we think and attempt to give meaning to our lives
through self-examination, may the Lord God Almighty
grant us the wisdom and courage to live meaningfully
the implications of our own thinking and the repercussions
of our own attempts.
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