Decades ago, as a newly graduated engineer, I worked for a company that invested heavily in its people. My employment there turned out to be a blessing.
Because the company invested in its people, cross-training was a priority. This meant that engineers were cross-trained in areas outside of engineering. The training I took included courses in business management, sales, and even psychology.
Among the training courses was also a course on personal professional development. On the first night, the instructor asked the class, “Why did this company hire you?” Most of us responded by describing our credentials and skills. Some elaborated on their grade point average or standing in their graduating class.
The instructor responded very directly. “You are all wrong. You are here because the company needs you. When the company no longer needs you, you will not be working here anymore.”
That was certainly a hard and even an unpleasant truth. However, it was and still is true. It does not matter how smart you are, how many degrees you have, or even if you are hard working. If your employer are no longer needs you, you are gone.
As a child, I remember my father talking about the sign painters on staff at the manufacturing plant which he worked. Today, companies no longer have sign painting departments. Large laser printers print the signage. The sign painters are gone. It had nothing to do with how skilled or hard working they were.
The focus of this personnel professional development course was to constantly assess yourself. One must understand one’s strengths and weakness and then take steps correct them.
Weekly Highlights
Many if not most companies encourage this form of self-assessment. Every company I have worked has required me to provide weekly highlights stating what I had achieved over the past week.
These weekly reports factored into our annual performance reviews. Together they fostered a behavior of short-term self-assessment and long-term annual reflection.
One of my bosses requested that the weekly highlights be simplified. He requested a simple five-bullet list of accomplishments, nothing more.
DOGE recently requested employees of United States Federal Government to provide reports of their previous week’s work activities. The outrage that resulted from the request was disheartening if not ironic. Federal workers even filed a lawsuit calling such the request “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.” Really? I thought this was a normal, common business practice!
Applying Self-Assessments to Your Spiritual Life
It took me 20 years to figure out that I could and should apply this same practice to my spiritual life. If getting to heaven is one’s first goal, and bringing as many souls with you as possible, why not reflect regularly on achieving this goal.
I must confess that getting started was not easy. This exercise forced me to reveal to myself many things I did want to admit. Spiritually, I was need of restoration more than maintenance. The only person I could file a lawsuit against was myself.
Initially, I focused on the traditional examination of conscience as if preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The focus was on sins committed and left un-confessed.
There are many fine guides available to help one perform a good examination of conscience. Catholic stand has many good essays on the subject from several different perspectives.
However, I also realized I had to relearn that a true self-assessment is a review not just of failures, but of successes. One should do more than just repent but identify where one needs spiritual development.
Identifying and Understanding
When examining one’s conscience, one must identify what sins were committed. Moreover, we should also understand what temptations we resisted. Why not reflect on five different times you successfully resisted temptation and avoided sin? Doing so may be helpful in resisting other sins.
One should also recognize what works of mercy s/he has performed. But we must assess what we left undone or what opportunities we did not use. Why not contemplate on five things we might do differently the following week to be the face of Christ to others?
A self-assessment should look at not just the negatives, but the positives as well. It should identify ways one can grow in the Faith.
When reflecting on one’s spiritual life, I also found that I needed to consider my action over a longer term and not just a weekly or daily examination of conscience. Just as my employers required a comprehensive annual review, I found the need to do the same spiritually.
I have made it a habit to do this during Christmas. I typically have extra time and can extract myself from the daily hustle and bustle to reflect on spiritual strengths and weaknesses. It also allows me to plan the next year, to honor our Holy Days of Obligation and schedule a retreat to escape the deafening noise of our daily lives.
We Can Only Fire Ourselves
Ultimately, the four last things everyone will face are death, judgement, heaven, and hell. Unlike earthly employers, however, our Eternal Father will not fire us when we are no longer needed. But we can fire ourselves by freely rejecting Him.
Those who have served Him while in the world will be bound for heaven, but many will have to undergo a period of purification. Only then is one fit to enter God’s presence.
Deep down, many of us already know that parts of our souls are marred and need purification. Why not start working on that now?
14 thoughts on “Reflecting on the Positives and the Negatives”
To CaptCrisis – Okay, I thought your points might have something to do with the article. I was wrong.
You cited DOGE as pursing a standard business practice. I pointed out that this is incorrect. You asked me for details and I gave them.
Your essay is typical of what happens at this site, an otherwise unexceptionable (and sometimes very well-written) piece ruined by a pro-Trump or culture war potshot. In some cases I get the impression that the writer started with the potshot and wrote the rest of the essay around it. I ask you: was the mention of DOGE necessary? Could you have written the essay without it?
To Captain Crisis – You come across as very bitter as well as naive. It is common practice for people to document what one does. I have been doing it for 30 years working for 4 different companies. I request the same of my team. I did not invent the practice. My comment tying in current events was intended to point out that it is ridiculous to protest such a common sense activity as self-reflection.
Moreover, why should I stop referencing current events because you are irrationally triggered? You seem to tie everything to your irrational hatred of the current President of the United States.
This essay is about self-reflection both good and bad. However, you seem to have missed the entire point because you seem to be blinded by hatred. Perhaps you should do some self-reflection on why you are irrational and so easily triggered.
With your permission, I would like to pray for you.
No hatred in my post — just reciting facts, which you don’t want to listen to.
To CaptCrisis – It sounds like you need some honest feedback. Your posts do come across with a lot of anger and hatred. You should take some time a reflect on that.
Also, I did read (or listen as you put it) to your posts. Just because I did not comment on them does not mean I did not read (listen in your words) what you posted. Again, your posts had little to do with self-reflection.
You seem very focused on politics. That is not the mission of Catholic Stand. You might want to try a political blog or online political newspaper.
“You are here because the company needs you. When the company no longer needs you, you will not be working here anymore.”
Sounds like commercial abortion.
One is not murdered by being ripped apart by a curettage or poisoned when a company lets you go. I don’t see the connection.
There are many instances of people losing their jobs to corporate greed, then losing their homes. delving into severe depression (esp older workers), going on a muderous rampage, and taking ones own life. Death is the connection.
To Ordinary Papist – I would really appreciate a reference to these instances. With the layoffs, downsizing, and cuts that I have experienced in my career, I have never experienced the death you claim.
Let me share with you what I have experienced. I find companies spend most of their time trying to survive as opposed to making greedy profits. Profits in themselves are not evil. Without some profit, a company goes out of business and all the employees loose. My current employer had billions in revenue last year, but barely made a profit. I have witnessed plant managers and company presidents agonize about layoffs and firings of some people in an effort to keep the remaining people employed. I have seen them offer severance packages and pay for job placement to soften the impact of the downsizing.
Within my own family, a downsizing from one company led to a new career in another.
My father was downsize through early retirement. He went on to start a home business making parts in his basement.
As a Trumpite, you must believe all the ‘truth’ about how we sold out the USA to overseas companies who don’t pay taxes, all the pain and suffering noted, which is evident in the rust belts across the country. So with this, my attempt to counter your essay, ends.
To Ordinary Papist – Christ is the only person I work to follow while living and working in the rust belt as you call it. I do not look to anyone on this earth for salvation. You might want to reflect on the number of erroneous presuppositions in your last post while dodging the inquiry for just one instance.
You are missing some fundamental differences between what DOGE is doing and “common business practice”, and also about the nature of the objections.
To CaptCrisis – Okay, I am imterested. What fundamental differences as I missing?
1. DOGE does not know what it is doing. It’s easy to find lists of things it misidentified, figures it misquoted (or lied about). In the name of “efficiency” it has eliminated the people who are overseeing our nuclear stockpile, and an agency that provides desperately needed medical care and vaccines to children overseas. When this was pointed out they had to partially backtrack. There are other examples, of course. It has a “wrecking ball” philosophy without any careful determination as to which things really need cutting.
2. You can’t run the federal government like a business, cold-heartedly chopping what is inefficient or unneeded. Some things (and some positions) by law can’t be eliminated. And other things are humanitarian, or military necessities, such as noted above.
3. Many government employees can’t reply to the questionnaire because it involves disclosure of classified or sensitive matters which until now has been protected from disclosure. DOGE has little awareness of this fact. Worse, it is taking personal information (such as tax returns) and freely handing it over to the world’s richest man to do with it what he pleases. Not even the President can get your tax returns; he has to get a court order for that.
4. As an initial matter DOGE has no legitimate legal authority. The President can’t simply hand over an overarching government task to one of his rich buddies. It requires Congressional authorization. The President is not Dictator of the Executive Branch.
5. Based on Trump’s past conduct, and the current conduct of DOGE, it is clear that the real agenda is to strip the federal government of expertise achieved through prior qualifications or long experience, and to eliminate anyone who might have had a bad opinion of Trump or said anything bad about him. This is a recipe for disaster and has not been done by any prior President. For example, lots of people in the military had a bad opinion of President Obama. He made no attempt to fire them or demote them.