Picture:
W. Edwards Deming
100 Labor for heaven here and now
Heaven in progress
Come walk with me through
the outskirts of heaven, a metaphorical staging area. We can
stroll through the prototype together.
Rearward view
First, let us reflect how
I got here. Before my earliest days of marriage and fatherhood, I
had dropped out of a free clinical trial after ten sessions with
the psychiatrist at student health. The rest of my psychoanalysis
has been autodidactic. That means I had to figure it out for
myself.
Occasionally, after
tuning a piano for a social worker, I would bounce around some
ideas. I had long before figured out that the face of a critical
Jesus appearing in a dream (saying “Du bist nicht gut genug” –
you are not good enough) can represent a stern father image. I
wasn’t sure whether one real-life person can appear as two
different people in a dream. That idea found validation! Soon I
realized that I was the real-life person connected with two dream
figures. I think that can be referred to as identity
crisis.
Nightmares were severe.
Security blankets abounded: seven layers of wool that made me
sweat profusely. After a can’t-run-away nightmare, I awoke with
the bedsheet tightly wrapped around and between my legs. With
effort, I can recall describing that traumatic period as a
journey on foot to the outskirts of Hell and back.
The significant phrase is
“and back.” Finally, at age 57.5 (which I remember vividly), I
walked into the kitchen and announced that I had hit bedrock. I
was right. I have had no nightmare since.
Forward view
The above story took
effort to remember. Twenty years later, I am universally cheerful
and filled only with positive thoughts—about you as well as about
me. The past was worthwhile learning. Now it is laid aside on
condition that I must remember what I have learned. I include the
negative story experience to show why today’s opening paragraph
is so real to me. I have included here many articles showing that
mental construct means everything to me because it determines
what I (and other people) bring into reality.
In a sense I have created
my present health through a lot of hard work. That is the success
I am constantly projecting forward into a future that is more
real to me than the dimming past. I sincerely invite you to
stroll with me in the heavenly prototype. I expect skeptical
atheists to accept metaphor as instructive language, not
theology.
On that basis, let us
take our stroll. Bring along your imagination. It is that, more
than your present, that I am entertaining. We will observe what
you want most to see about this new heaven under
construction.
Speaking of labor
The fact that I labored
successfully for my personhood gives me profound respect for
anyone who labors. That suggests using an employee as a type for
creative humanity. I will speak of creating the new world through
the figure of finding the right job. The theme has great personal
meaning to me. Incidentally, I choose self-employment every time,
but that merely means that everybody is my boss.
In the new world we are
building, is the employer the hypercritical god-figure who cannot
be satisfied? In my observation, most Americans do think so, and
they regard other people in terms of that struggle. They approve
a barrier that the candidate must overcome to be employed, and
then think in terms of demands rather than partnership.
Since we are making a new
world, let’s choose instead to make our better one like my future
instead of like my past. Let us do away with demands by
encouraging others to rise to kindly anticipations.
Article 40 discusses
the expectation advantage: those students perform better from
whom the teacher expected better results. The key is not
pressure; it is the favorable attention that encourages
achievement. Humans intrinsically have desire and capacity to
please others. That drive is all we need to motivate good
behavior.
Recall that competition
is friendly when it helps all parties improve (article
70). The pride of the Marines or of
the astronauts is a positive self-image earned by excellence. Its
purpose is not to create winners at the expense of losers. It is
to stimulate everyone to winning. Those who are not admitted to
the prestigious university have a benefit from having applied.
Healthy rebounding is to take the talent that almost made it into
[University of __] and realize its potential in the next best
setting. Everybody is meant to improve. Everybody deserves an
appropriately fitting position in which to do so.
When the above paragraph
is working, all the participants benefit from the game. The
system is not working if it is eliminating players from
the game. Article 74 dealt with
remedies to the problem of throw-away people. The barrier to
entry cannot morally keep people from useful
employment.
And cures
Our heaven is not a
predesigned mold plopped on unsuspecting players. Reality changes
through our effort over time. Appropriate improvements are the
ones we learn to carry out as an inclusive team. Instead of
saying the world is bad, we realize that our observations are
getting better as we become more aware of the better world that
should be. Writing courses are teaching me “it is not about you;
it is all about them.” That applies to this model of heaven. We
focus on the new world, the work product, not on
ourselves.
Advocating benevolent
labor practices does not produce instant heaven.
Article 95 taught that
panacea grows out of understanding. Legislation cannot
cure profiteering, wage gouging, slavery, child labor, or
subjugation of an underclass. Cooperative intense study and
effort go into developing remedies. As successful methods are
chosen, legislation can bring us together on the same policy
page. Nevertheless, it is the hard work and understanding that
bring about the progress.
The old model pits
management against labor. Each side accumulates coaches and
trains experts to further its interests, frequently at the
expense of the other side. The boss demands, the hapless,
impotent worker feels drained and discarded. The competition is
adversarial rather than collaborative as explained
above.
The new prototype applies
a different view by assessing all the abilities and all the
needs, then developing a distribution pattern in which the worker
is gently directed to the most efficient station. Needs are met
in the common interest as all participants are on the same team
and collaborate toward the desired result.
The blazing insight did not transform me
suddenly into a relaxed person. I still had anxieties and
concerns that detracted from my performance. What changed inside
me was my approach to those negatives. Instead of applying an
artificial panacea, I undertook to apply analytical thinking.
Surely there were causes for my discomforts, and I pursued
identifying and alleviating those causes. To this day I study
myself in a spirit of scientific investigation to program logical
steps that address my needs and improve my health.
BeingForOthers.blog article 86
This article uses some
teachings of W. Edwards Deming in a heaven
allegory. I am not a management scientist, but as a thoughtful
human, I understand that the power of love applies directly to
the goal of having every person productive in a happy place. We
should not expect this heaven to appear instantaneously in this
life or the next. It is worth our labor.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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