It’s All About Me

One of the pitfalls of the MasterMind model is that in my struggle to succeed, it becomes really easy to shift my focus to “me” and only me. We all seem to be struggling to achieve financial security and a general sense of happiness – what Francis Schaeffer referred to as “Personal Peace and Affluence”. He put forth the concept that a culture will accept ANYTHING that comes along just so long as that new thing doesn’t threaten the majority’s sense of Personal Peace and Affluence.

In his book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, psychologist and author, Jonathan Haidt gets one thing right and one thing horribly wrong. He posits that what sets mankind apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is that we are “moral” creatures (an accurate observation). However, he goes on to assume that our tribe or klan – whether that be church, political party, or ethnic heredity – sets forth the basic tenets which we later develop “moral” guidelines to support. Famous twentieth-century theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, started from the same presupposition when he wrote “Moral Man and Immoral Society”, a work he later recanted. And while neither of those individuals were yet a sparkle in their daddy’s eye, Karl Marx expounded on the same worldview in “Das Kapital”, claiming that honorable man was corrupted by the greed and immorality of social leaders.

At the end of the day, the concept of “good” humans in a “bad” society just doesn’t hold water. We make our moral choices first as individuals, followed secondly by aligning ourselves with groups that validate and embolden those choices. The very first thing a newborn child does is begin wailing at the top of its lungs because its life to that point has never known “need”. It suddenly wants something it doesn’t have – whether that be food, comfort, or companionship. Did “society” in the form of the nurse spanking it on the butt, corrupt that innocent child or was it born with an innate desire for self-satisfaction?

And what does all this say about MasterMind? While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong about honing my business skills and earning more money, there has to be some moral anchor – larger and stronger than my tribe – which sets the limits to which I’ll go for profit and the percentage of that profit which will go towards fulfilling my “wants” versus helping needy human-beings with whom life brings me into direct contact.

“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God..”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer on his moral struggle over joining the conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler, an act which cost him his life two weeks before the end of World War Two.