Informed Judgment

There are two classes of physical entities: things that act, and things that are acted upon.  Human beings, generally, have the capacity for action and those who do act, as contrasted to those who are more passive or who are reactive, fare better in most of life’s arenas. 

 

The passive, or unprepared, or reactive are those who are frequently abused, unfulfilled, or find themselves playing catchup by their more forceful and successful contemporaries.  In these situations the passive are not usually happy people.

 

The more forceful ‘actor’ by contrast, however, is generally one of two classes of people: (1) forceful by bullying or physical strength or greater resources (often unearned resources) or of domineering personality; or (2) those who confidently act out of wisdom, love, or informed judgment. 

 

Since wisdom is usually acquired by time and experience, a younger or more disadvantaged person would do well to act out of love and informed judgment.  Love comes with involvement with and service to others and having a clear view of the supernal value of life—one’s own and that of he or she who the ‘actor’ serves.  Love grows and does not diminish unless his/her focus turns inward. 

 

This leaves us with informed judgment as a guide, a safety shield, a starter and a motive power.  Where does one get that?

 

The easiest way, I think, for a young person (but probably the least pursued) is to align himself with a mentor—formerly called a ‘master’—one who has the qualities, skills, values and knowledge the fledgling actor needs or desires.  Then the person—the ‘actor’—needs to become an apprentice, an intern, a trainee, to listen, watch, learn, and willingly practice under guidance of the ‘master.’  The ‘intern’ thus uses the informed judgment of the ‘master’ to inform his own. The trainee will be tempered, of course, by his own unique talents or proclivities but he must be willing to be taught, first, without any resistance to the experience of the teacher. As a former coach I was well-aware of those who were ‘coachable’ and those who were not, and many were the un-coachable who had the tools, the native talent and potential but who never amounted to much, at least in athletics, because they did not learn this critical point.

Finally, of course, the ‘actor’ must read, read, read about and be around, if possible, others who have achieved what he wants to achieve and be thankful to acquire in part the master’s ‘informed judgment.’

Marry Young

I know this goes counter to every warning and most advice you will hear, especially in today’s culture of uncertainty, but let me make my case.

 

First let me acknowledge the reality.  Young adults, if they marry at all, do so at a much later age than has ever been the norm in America. Why?  Because they are afraid.  They look at the statistics—of the divorces, of their resources, of the prospects, and they freeze up. 

 

Formerly, at least in the first six decades of 20^th Century America, a young couple looked forward to making a life together— having a courtship, being in love, marrying, getting a job, working together, expecting a time of penny-pinching, having children, establishing a starter home of their own, and assuming there would be stability, fidelity, teamwork and commitment . . . and happiness.

 

All of this did not start after the person was ‘established.’  It came through the process.

The McGuire Sisters’ song, “Love and Marriage” (or almost any Doris Day song) sums it up nicely (or idealistically):

“Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.  This I tell you brother, you can’t have one without the other.

It’s an institute you can’t disparage

Ask the local gentry, they will say it’s elementary.

Dad was told by mother; you can’t have one without the other.” 

As I see it—and have experienced it—marriage can be ‘an institut[ion] you can’t disparage’ if you just do it right.  It is a wonderful God-ordained institution that satisfies not only a person’s natural instincts, but builds the participants and creates and lends stability to any society that encourages and protects it. 

 

But here’s what has damaged it so badly in the last half-century:

·                  The ‘pill.’  Curtailing the birth of children has left the marriage with two legs of a three-legged stool.  It is unnatural and unstable.  The focus for happiness of the couple (alone) has been turned inward (to self) rather than outward (to spouse) and what they through their love-union can create (family).  Selfishness (childlessness) always erodes happiness as the honeymoon ends or the blush fades from the rose petal. 

·                     Materialism.  When people want ‘things’ more than they want to make another person happy and secure then they find it necessary to go out of the home (women in particular) to pay for these things.  Temptations in the marketplace (things or other people) always exist.  Once a material focus develops there is no end to it.  The ‘family’ is relegated to second-fiddle.

·                     Loosened moral standards and pornography.  If the safety mechanisms of conscience and time-honored standards of morality and decency as taught by true religion are disregarded then the satisfying marriage or hoped-for marriage has little chance of survival or even establishment.  If a young man or older man gets caught in the web of pornography (and it is nearly instantaneous if/when he opens or goes to the book, magazine, or website or business) it is a sure forecast of proximate or ultimate ruination.  It may be the fastest addiction.  Then the addict quickly learns that this object of his focus becomes his master (or mistress)—a fantasy or even physiological substitution for the real thing.  A sound marriage and an addiction cannot exist together.
 

·                    So-called No-fault divorce.  Of course someone is at fault-- that’s the problem. At least one of the couple has not learned, has forgotten, disregarded, or devalued the initial marriage expectation.  Unless a standard of commitment and responsibility and unity of values is acknowledged and committed to, the resultant pseudo- marriage or ‘relationship’ has a built-in easy escape clause. Hearts are broken and people are damaged.

 

So why marry young?  Marry while adjustment is easier—before your life becomes inflexible.  Marry so you can protect each other.  Marry so you can build a great thing together.  Marry so you are out of the temptations of the world that beguile and afflict and capture the vulnerable.  Marry so you can find and give happiness with/to another person and in the process gain the greatest satisfactions of life.   

The longer one waits, the more negative things (selfishness, materialism, sublimating addictions, attitudes of non-commitment—divorce, bankruptcy, etc.) have time to become established.

This is the old-school view.  And do you know what?  In most cases it worked!

Oblivious

Read the next sentence at your normal reading speed and read it only once counting the number of f’s in it:  Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of the years.  Now, without looking back, how many f’s did you count?

Seventy percent of smart people who follow instructions (did you follow instructions?) see three f’s at first count.  Actually there are six.

Most people who miss the f’s miss them in the little preposition ‘of’ –a word so common and seemingly unimportant that our eye just skips over it.


How often does being oblivious to the common or seemingly unimportant keep us from seeing something right in front of us that may be a clue to some human need that we could help resolve? 

In our lives are people who we may encounter or interact with some regularity such as people we work with, or people whose services we rely on, or even close friends or family members who may have needs or wants or feelings that reveal themselves if we were only more observant—if we were only looking. 
 

Too often, though, we only become aware when the person blows up, walks out, hurts themselves, or experiences some disaster that might have been delayed, avoided, or resolved at an earlier, lower level.  These people, more often than not, have become invisible to us (like the letter ‘f’) because we were too familiar with them on the surface or took them too much for granted, or couldn’t ‘see’ them because we were too busy looking at ourselves.  Moreover, because things (growth or decay) usually happen gradually we miss the change because of the process of time.  We didn’t experience these people deeply enough, in the early stages, to make a difference. 

We must all admit there are people all around us who are in the sphere of our influence and with whom we could make a difference, but who we may become oblivious to, like those who Jesus called “the least among us.” They may be, as the boy I saw depicted in an old short film, “Cipher in the Snow,” or the young black man in Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man (1952).

             

 Much of the heartache suffered by others—which ultimately causes our heart to ache as well—could be avoided and lives enriched—if we took more of a proactive and caring attitude toward them.  To do that we need to be looking, sensing, listening, understanding and, for some of us, being much, much more kind.