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BAO
DECISIONS
CAN
WRECK
YOUR LIFE
by
Jeff Calkins
"A prudent man foreseerh the evil,
and
hideth himse{{ but the simple
pass on,
and
are punished" (Pro v.
27: 12).
S
orne people don't leatl life: they
follow it a round. Take the case
of John and Martha.
Aga inst the aggrega te wisdom of
everybody they knew. thcy got mar–
ried. None of thcir friends bclieved
thcy were ri ght for each othcr. Even
thc minister almost refu ed to per–
form the ceremony. Thcy married
anyway.
Predictably. they didn't get along.
John spent a lot of time running
around with "the boys" whose com–
pany he preferred to that of his wife.
or luxuriating in his own mach ismo
whil c he tooled around the loca l en–
virons in his mul tihued van.
Martha cou ldn ' t stand it. She
even hated to get up in the morning.
Their marriage was marked by a r–
gument~.
fights. door slamming. and
one partne_r or the other leaving and
vowing never to return. Still. they
eontinued to muddle a long as (not
quite) husband and wife.
John a nd Martha got a good deal
on their apartment and both were
working, so they were in good shape
financially. Bu t one day John saw
an ad in a magazine offcring the
glorie. and sat isfact ions of "owning
your own business" and ''retiring
before you're forty" by becoming a
"dea ler" for a particular company's
products. Two weeks after John had
answered the ad. quit his job, and
become a "dealer," the company
folded.
Amazingly enough, John could
The
PLAIN TRUTH November 1976
have gotten his old job back. But he
could n' t accept the offer - pride
would n' t lct him. He preferrcd to
look for work with anoth er com–
pa ny dealing in th e
~ame
line of
prod ucts.
Mart ha. in the meantime - and
a t the wors t conceivable time - con–
ceivcd. They had bccn "careless."
Since hcr was the only teady
souree of family income and she
had to leave work, their formerly
optimistic fina ncia! picturc evapo–
ra ted.
John flna lly took ajobas a sa les–
man at a local car dealership. The
owncr offered him a "special dear·
on hi. old van in trade. and a dis–
coun t on a yet newer one, fully
eq uipped wi th stereo, carpeti ng
throughout , and utterly ego-assuag–
in g padded leath e r tr im. John
couldn ' t resist this bargain. Pay–
ments we re "only" $ 150 a month
more
than what he had bcen paying.
But more fa mily fight. ensued.
Just aftcr their first ch ild wa. born,
their marriagc broke up. and cach
wcnt his own way. with th e chi ld
bcing put up for adop tion.
This tale of trauma which 1 have
just ou tlincd. while fictional in itself.
is altoget hcr too true in the livc of
thousands of people. Intli vidua ls
with good health. unafflictcd by ca t–
astrophic accidents or diseases. still
manage almost by sheer dint of pcr–
vcrsity to mak e th emsclvcs un–
happy.
Living
by
Accident
Most of us don't have some pcr–
ver e. masochistic urge to make our–
selves unhappy. We'd ra ther not go
through life blindfolded, li ving by
accid cnt as it were, bumping into
objects because we don' t have the
good sense to take the blindfold off.
We don't consciously desire our own
hurt. and there is a lot we can do to
prevent it. We can think. reason.
look ahead. open our eyes. make
intelligent judgments. and otherwise
use our brains. In short. we can
lcarn to make wise decisions.
ln some ways. life is like chess. in
others. like poker. l t is like chess in
that we
can
improve our lot by mak–
ing the right decisions. We do have
cont rol over many things. such as
our personal relationships with
others. our careers. our goa ls. and
our purcha cs. which are amenable
to our conscious wills. Life is like
poker in that there are ome things
ovcr wh ich we have no cont rol : who
our parents a re, the statc of health
with which we were born, outside
forccs in thc world. the statc of th e
economy.
But even when life deals you a
bad hand. you can still come out
pretty wcll off by sk ill fully manag–
ing the cards you hold. Or. a is
dcmonstrated in Christ's famous
parable of the talents. no matter
how few abi lities or advan tagcs wc
start out wit h in life. we hou ld till
make the be t of them.
Let's look at the principies John
and Martha could have applicd in
ordcr to make their lives some thing
ot her th an an unmitigated string of
disas ters:
-
The Know- Your-Goals Prin–
cipie.
lf John and Martha had each
done some thinking on what life is
all about before they got marricd.
probably thcy both would have
wou nd up wi th ma tes more suitcd to
thcir personalities.
D id John have a definite career in
mind bcfore he married Martha?
Did he have some firm idea where
marriage and fam ily life fit into thc
ove ra ll pattern of his li fe? Had he
ever sat down and considered his
talents. intcrests. and abilities, and
consciously decided what he wantcd
to
do
with his life?
Had Martha rea lly thought out
what shc wanted to do? Marriage.
ca reer. chi ldren. or what com–
binat ion of these th ree? l iad she
really analyzed herself enough to
know what kind of a husband she
wa nted?
-
The Trae/e-Off Principie.
lf
John rea ll y wa nted to marry Martha
for her good qualities, was he wi ll–
ing to accept her bad traits also? If
Martha really wanted John. was he
willing to tolerate those personality
and character traits that he now
finds so an noyi ng? In other words.
John and Martha should have rea l–
ized that no one is perfect, that we
usually can't have something wc de–
sire without giving up something
else in return.
-
The Counsel Principie.
" In the
multitude of counselors there is
safety," wrote Solomon (Prov. 11 :4).
There is a basic law of statistics
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