Samuel Johnson is said to have once written that “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
I think that’s true.
But as poetic as it is, it suffers from entirely too much symmetry.
I listened to a fascinating conversation this week between Marc Andreessen and Clayton Christensen. In that discussion, Clayton talked about some of the things that got him to write his book How Will You Measure Your Life.
Right before the conversation ended, Clayton talked about an experience he had as a young business consultant. Faced with a looming deadline and a team who expected him to step up, Clayton was asked to work over a weekend. Despite the intense pressure from his boss, Clayton steadfastly refused to work the weekend because it would have meant violating commitments he had made to his wife and to God.
Angry and bewildered at his obstinacy, Clayton’s boss asked him whether “Just this once, in this particular extenuating circumstance,” if Clayton could just make the sacrifice to get the project done.
But still Clayton refused.
Now, years later, Clayton explains, “It turns out that that decision is one of the most important decisions I ever made, because it turns out that my whole life has been filled with an unending stream of extenuating circumstances and if I had said ‘Just this once’ the next time it occurred and the next time, it’s easier and easier. And I decided that it is easier to hold to our principles 100% of the time than it is to hold on to them 98% of the time.”
You see, it really doesn’t matter whether we’re dealing with people who can do us good or not. The true measure of a person is how we treat anyone we meet.
So it’s really important to hold on to the right things.
The culture we’re building here is the kind of culture that doesn’t stop at the free market. Having taken stock of the world in which we live, with all its beauty and its injustice, this culture pushes us to ask what we can make right.
