I have my own business. We actually manufacture wigets and ship them all over the world. The *only* way to stay in business and make a profit is to decide how good each task must be done. If every task were to be done *best*, our products would be so expensive nobody would buy them. It's fine for some officious foot to sit back and declare only the best to be acceptable, but just let him try to make a living doing that.
Yeah, wouldn't we all love for the sandbag fillers to be obsessing over making their sandbags the "BEST", meanwhile the water is cresting over the levee.
Obviously there's a time and place for most any kind of work. In WayWorld though, thought was NEVER encouraged. Blind obeisance was the order of the day. And snappy oneliners and pithy platitudes. Reason and common sense were generally verbotten...
And you know what, TWI oftentimes didn't even come close to doing the best for it's followers and employees. No health insurance, is that the best? Clapped out obsolete equipment ready for the dump? No, we couldn't buy new equipment, that wouldn't be the best use of God's money. We'll just tell our staff that *they* need to do their best to keep it running. I wished to hell I'd never bought into that line of opportunistic bs.
My boss will come in and show us all how it is done. It is perfect, no errors no possible complaints and he swells his chest and says often, " It not only has to be done it has to be done right!".
yeah ok , he comes in and does it in four times the amount of time we are given to complete a task one time only .
It isnt the same thing. I want to say to him , work under the pressure, work like YOUR JOB DEPENDED ON IT GETTING DONE TODAY . Now do it five days a week.
I have to believe good enough is good enough to meet the dead lines, he doesnt .
In twi everyone "knew the word" and the thng that killed me it was not about people it was "the word" and like my employer, that is well and good when you do not have the relationship with the people the love and concern God asks us to have for one another.
Come on in throw some verses out there and say see your wrong Im right and call it a ministry of God people.
I do not think so I think God invested in us loving one another before He wants the "word" used as a bullet to attack one another.
Yes it has to be "done right" the word of god is the standard , but the higher law of loving one another from Jesus got erased with the pride and competittion of being the best or better.
My boss will come in and show us all how it is done. It is perfect, no errors no possible complaints and he swells his chest and says often, " It not only has to be done it has to be done right!".
yeah ok , he comes in and does it in four times the amount of time we are given to complete a task one time only.
It isnt the same thing. I want to say to him , work under the pressure, work like YOUR JOB DEPENDED ON IT GETTING DONE TODAY . Now do it five days a week.
I have to believe good enough is good enough to meet the dead lines, he doesnt .
I don't get it. He wants you (all) to perform the same task at the same level in 1/4 th time that he's able to perform the task at that level? Has anyone privately or publicly presented him with the discrepancy with the length of time he takes vs the allocated time?
Rather than humor him, you might ask him if he would be willing to show you how to get that result in the acceptable time range.
this isnt about my boss really it is how wi related to people when good was never enough, so they will show us a better way.
Twi had a system much the same the untouchables had the power of God supposly that we wanted to learn.
Leaders in twi had power or knowledge of God, and could prove it with the class they took, who they fellowshipped with etc...
How many folks in twi had families and real jobs and responsibilities yet continued to meet the exspectations of twi ON top of real life.
real life was not not in the big picture, the focus was twi only. then when things happened when it wasnt possible to meet demand, what was wrong?
not twi and its warped sense of how it should be done but the folks actualy striving to find Gods will in life.
I think so many focused on how Twi programmed the idea of what was "best" that it actualy stopped the progress of goodness and turned many into stressful hateful people with the competition being within one another instead of with the Lord Jesus Christ .
It seems that there is a genuine concensus of sorts that things along that lines of "being the best" went screwy in TWI. Some of the posts mention obsession, heartless competition, and base incompetance to name a few.
You all have certainly given me a few things to consider along these lines. Except pehaps just one post. :B)
Playing "devil's advocate" here ---
It's the rests and stopped measures in music that keep you in line with the rest of "the tune".
Usually what you DON'T play, keeps you "in step" with the rest of the band, as well as with the one conducting too.
In this case --- less is actually conforming to the "norm" and thus it's more than "good enough". It's what's required.
:)
Dear Dave,
HUH?
I am marginally better with music than computers and I fully realize that is not saying much.
It seems that there is a genuine concensus of sorts that things along that lines of "being the best" went screwy in TWI. Some of the posts mention obsession, heartless competition, and base incompetance to name a few.
You all have certainly given me a few things to consider along these lines. Except pehaps just one post. :B)
(dmiller @ May 11 2009, 09:11 PM)
Playing "devil's advocate" here ---
It's the rests and stopped measures in music that keep you in line with the rest of "the tune".
Usually what you DON'T play, keeps you "in step" with the rest of the band, as well as with the one conducting too.
In this case --- less is actually conforming to the "norm" and thus it's more than "good enough". It's what's required.
:)
Dear Dave,
HUH?
I am marginally better with music than computers and I fully realize that is not saying much.
Hey there Jeff. I was agreeing with Waysider. :) The concept that twi taught (as Geo pointed out), was "give it your all", while ignoring what's going on around you. It's a fine line between "doing your best" (as taught by twi), and recognizing the reality that happens to be occurring right around you at any given moment.
Sure -- It's good and admirable to "give your best", but in the musical context given above --- "giving your best" requires the musician to take an occasional break from playing, so that the entire song has a sense of cohesiveness. Whatever music you like to listen to, listen to how some folks come in strong on their instruments or vocals, and then back off so the rest of the band can fill in, so as to make it (the song) a complete entity. Sure --- It's a recording from a recording studio, but the principle applies. By giving 100% doesn't necessarily mean playing all the time.
I can't speak for Waysider, but what I meant by my comment was merely saying that "pausing" at times within a tune or song or an orchestral score keeps you "in sync" with the rest of the band and one doesn't have to go "balls-to-the-wall" the way twi taught us to do, in order to be giving 100%. Hope that makes sense. :)
It seems that there is a genuine concensus of sorts that things along that lines of "being the best" went screwy in TWI. Some of the posts mention obsession, heartless competition, and base incompetance to name a few.
You all have certainly given me a few things to consider along these lines. Except pehaps just one post. :B)
Dear Dave,
HUH?
I am marginally better with music than computers and I fully realize that is not saying much.
He's saying that sometimes your "best" involves doing nothing at all.
this isnt about my boss really it is how wi related to people when good was never enough, so they will show us a better way.
Twi had a system much the same the untouchables had the power of God supposly that we wanted to learn.
Leaders in twi had power or knowledge of God, and could prove it with the class they took, who they fellowshipped with etc...
I guess that's where I differed from the pack. Rather than stand there and scream in my head about the lunacy while keeping a stiff smile on my face, my tendency would be to find some way to deal with it so that I wouldn't have to have all the pent up crap.
The "untouchables" had an air of "don't mess with me" and really nothing more. It turned out to be very beneficial to develop a don't mess with me attitude. I don't know if I could have kept that had I entered the corp, but I realized WC wasn't for me.
If someone stands there and makes unreasonable demands and you stand there and say nothing, whose fault is that?
I am marginally better with music than computers and I fully realize that is not saying much.
Hey there Jeff. I was agreeing with Waysider. :) The concept that twi taught (as Geo pointed out), was "give it your all", while ignoring what's going on around you. It's a fine line between "doing your best" (as taught by twi), and recognizing the reality that happens to be occurring right around you at any given moment.
Sure -- It's good and admirable to "give your best", but in the musical context given above --- "giving your best" requires the musician to take an occasional break from playing, so that the entire song has a sense of cohesiveness. Whatever music you like to listen to, listen to how some folks come in strong on their instruments or vocals, and then back off so the rest of the band can fill in, so as to make it (the song) a complete entity. Sure --- It's a recording from a recording studio, but the principle applies. By giving 100% doesn't necessarily mean playing all the time.
I can't speak for Waysider, but what I meant by my comment was merely saying that "pausing" at times within a tune or song or an orchestral score keeps you "in sync" with the rest of the band and one doesn't have to go "balls-to-the-wall" the way twi taught us to do, in order to be giving 100%. Hope that makes sense. :)
Another example of this.
Twi thinking says that all the instruments have to be used for all the song, otherwise the song is "good"
but not "best."
Here's a song that violates that thinking. Would it be a better song with more instruments in more of the song?
Though I cannot find any documentation, I am easonably certain that poem was written by Edgar A. Guest, who wrote many little poems of the wholesome, encouraging sort, all as I recall in iambic pentameter.
It occurs to me that since we are all faulty human beings, everything we do will be faulty to some degree.
Isn't that why we are urged to be forgiving of one another??
But to do our best, in any situation, or with what we can do...that's another matter.
Doing our best is sometimes, often, time-limited. Or facilities-limited. Or limited by what we have to work with - is it worth doing an immaculate repair and paint job on a car that spends its time travelling on dirt roads? Does the job meet the need, achieve the purpose? Does it do this without causing danger, irritation or confusion? Well, then, it's done.
Something about the 80/20 rule...80% of the work is done in 20% of the time. Which means that if you spend 80% of the time doing the other 20% of the work - the frills, the perfectionist bits - it's hardly "redeeming the time, for the days are evil," is it?
We were told, God did a perfect work in us when He redeemed us. Therefore we should imitate that perfection.
Last time I checked..I wasn't God. That job's already taken.
Sorry about that not being able to read this business. Take Care and God Bless.
Dear Oneophile,
You know what, you are right, it should have been easy to shooy his b.s. down. But I guess being right in the middle of all this stuff with a big and bogus group think going on while trying to serve God with a clear conscience seemed at times; looking back at it that is; to have left me without the simple answers in the moment when I might have needed them.
Dear DMiller and Tzai,
Thanh you, I think I understand that post better now.
_____________________
What is healthy that is going on right now is a consideration of what good enough really is as it may apply to different situations.
In my former splinter group the whole concept of what was good or excellent was controlled by one man. And everyone else was subject to his various insane thinking patterns as he was the one proclaimed as "the Word in the Flesh." And he was offended by my making light of one of Wierwille's favorite poems. Looking back at those years it seems fair to think that with me this was a fairly regular occurance. But what should have I expected from a sociopath that taught us that Christ would send Wierwille to gather us together to Himself. gaaack!
From what I've heard everyone that stayed in TWI for any length of time, espescially the ones close to top leadership, had to give up their own right to determine for themselves what was good or excellent. And whether this thinking for self was given up to Wierwille or my former chief sociopath it seems clear that the right to think for ourselves was enough of a threat to these type of bastards that we may have been subject to destructive and manipulative behavior.
As far as speaking for myself it seems clear, for me it is history, not opinion anymore. But what I didn't learn until recently was that TWI was every bit as bad as my former splinter group and even worse in some ways.
When you are talking about people that use a religion and a group of people to appease their own psychosis, then good enough will never be good enough. Because it's not actually about the quality of service, it's about that complaining and being dissatisfied is what they are after. It gets them wanted and craved attention, enforces rank in the "household", and makes them think they are more spiritual by upholding some kind of legalistic, unrealistic, and wicked standard. It upholds their sick, psychotic view of themselves, which actually is completely contrary to scripture. Usually the complaint is after the fact, as opposed to seeing effort in training before the fact.
When I face people like this now, I generally look at 'unreasonable' types of expectations as the person holding them is the one with the problem.
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WordWolf
Beware of Good Enough
author unknown
My Child, beware of "good enough,"
It isn't made of sterling stuff.
It's something anyone can do;
It marks the many from the few.
The flaw which may escape the eye,
And temporarily get by.
Shall weaken underneath the strain,
And wreck the ship, the car, or plane.
With "good enough," the car breaks down,
And one falls short of high renown.
My child, remember and be wise,
In "good enough", disaster lies.
With "good enough," the shirkers stop,
In every factory and shop;
With "good enough," the failures rest,
And lose the one who gives the best.
Who stops at "good enough" shall find,
Success has left them far behind.
For this is true of you and your stuff--
Only the best is "good enough."
================
It makes a pithy saying, but this sentiment works some of the time, and fails miserably other times.
For those who are used to doing inadequate jobs, it's a reminder to do better.
For those who already got the job done, it's an invitation to waste lots of time.
It's been said, of making ALL movies, that you never "finish" a movie, you just "give up on it."
In other words, think of your favorite movies, and realize that someone can easily walk up,
recite this poem, and expect the director to spend hundreds of hours more on it, to
"improve" it.
How do you feel about Lucas and Spielberg redoing E.T because "it was only good enough"?
Well, they DID!
Basically, everything you ever owned was considered "good enough" and produced as it was.
Heck, every operating system ever used on a computer was considered "good enough".
As frustrating as every O/S has been at some time, it's been of great use to somebody at
some time.
etc.
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waysider
Anyone who has ever taken music lessons knows that the rests have just as much value as the notes.
Sometimes what you DON'T play is every bit as important as what you DO play.
There are occasions when "less" is really "more".
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Jim
"Not everything worth doing is worth doing well"
I have my own business. We actually manufacture wigets and ship them all over the world. The *only* way to stay in business and make a profit is to decide how good each task must be done. If every task were to be done *best*, our products would be so expensive nobody would buy them. It's fine for some officious foot to sit back and declare only the best to be acceptable, but just let him try to make a living doing that.
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dmiller
Playing "devil's advocate" here ---
It's the rests and stopped measures in music that keep you in line with the rest of "the tune".
Usually what you DON'T play, keeps you "in step" with the rest of the band, as well as with the one conducting too.
In this case --- less is actually conforming to the "norm" and thus it's more than "good enough". It's what's required.
:)
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George Aar
Yeah, wouldn't we all love for the sandbag fillers to be obsessing over making their sandbags the "BEST", meanwhile the water is cresting over the levee.
Obviously there's a time and place for most any kind of work. In WayWorld though, thought was NEVER encouraged. Blind obeisance was the order of the day. And snappy oneliners and pithy platitudes. Reason and common sense were generally verbotten...
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Jim
Sandbag fillers.. a great analogy.
And you know what, TWI oftentimes didn't even come close to doing the best for it's followers and employees. No health insurance, is that the best? Clapped out obsolete equipment ready for the dump? No, we couldn't buy new equipment, that wouldn't be the best use of God's money. We'll just tell our staff that *they* need to do their best to keep it running. I wished to hell I'd never bought into that line of opportunistic bs.
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pond
My boss will come in and show us all how it is done. It is perfect, no errors no possible complaints and he swells his chest and says often, " It not only has to be done it has to be done right!".
yeah ok , he comes in and does it in four times the amount of time we are given to complete a task one time only .
It isnt the same thing. I want to say to him , work under the pressure, work like YOUR JOB DEPENDED ON IT GETTING DONE TODAY . Now do it five days a week.
I have to believe good enough is good enough to meet the dead lines, he doesnt .
In twi everyone "knew the word" and the thng that killed me it was not about people it was "the word" and like my employer, that is well and good when you do not have the relationship with the people the love and concern God asks us to have for one another.
Come on in throw some verses out there and say see your wrong Im right and call it a ministry of God people.
I do not think so I think God invested in us loving one another before He wants the "word" used as a bullet to attack one another.
Yes it has to be "done right" the word of god is the standard , but the higher law of loving one another from Jesus got erased with the pride and competittion of being the best or better.
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Tzaia
I don't get it. He wants you (all) to perform the same task at the same level in 1/4 th time that he's able to perform the task at that level? Has anyone privately or publicly presented him with the discrepancy with the length of time he takes vs the allocated time?
Rather than humor him, you might ask him if he would be willing to show you how to get that result in the acceptable time range.
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pond
this isnt about my boss really it is how wi related to people when good was never enough, so they will show us a better way.
Twi had a system much the same the untouchables had the power of God supposly that we wanted to learn.
Leaders in twi had power or knowledge of God, and could prove it with the class they took, who they fellowshipped with etc...
How many folks in twi had families and real jobs and responsibilities yet continued to meet the exspectations of twi ON top of real life.
real life was not not in the big picture, the focus was twi only. then when things happened when it wasnt possible to meet demand, what was wrong?
not twi and its warped sense of how it should be done but the folks actualy striving to find Gods will in life.
I think so many focused on how Twi programmed the idea of what was "best" that it actualy stopped the progress of goodness and turned many into stressful hateful people with the competition being within one another instead of with the Lord Jesus Christ .
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JeffSjo
It seems that there is a genuine concensus of sorts that things along that lines of "being the best" went screwy in TWI. Some of the posts mention obsession, heartless competition, and base incompetance to name a few.
You all have certainly given me a few things to consider along these lines. Except pehaps just one post. :B)
Dear Dave,
HUH?
I am marginally better with music than computers and I fully realize that is not saying much.
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excathedra
i can't even read this
s
h
i
t
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dmiller
Hey there Jeff. I was agreeing with Waysider. :) The concept that twi taught (as Geo pointed out), was "give it your all", while ignoring what's going on around you. It's a fine line between "doing your best" (as taught by twi), and recognizing the reality that happens to be occurring right around you at any given moment.
Sure -- It's good and admirable to "give your best", but in the musical context given above --- "giving your best" requires the musician to take an occasional break from playing, so that the entire song has a sense of cohesiveness. Whatever music you like to listen to, listen to how some folks come in strong on their instruments or vocals, and then back off so the rest of the band can fill in, so as to make it (the song) a complete entity. Sure --- It's a recording from a recording studio, but the principle applies. By giving 100% doesn't necessarily mean playing all the time.
I can't speak for Waysider, but what I meant by my comment was merely saying that "pausing" at times within a tune or song or an orchestral score keeps you "in sync" with the rest of the band and one doesn't have to go "balls-to-the-wall" the way twi taught us to do, in order to be giving 100%. Hope that makes sense. :)
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dmiller
(edited to correct the url).
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oenophile
Jeff, you should have reminded your sociopath that he is getting much more from you than what he is paying you, which was most likely nothing.
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Tzaia
He's saying that sometimes your "best" involves doing nothing at all.
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Tzaia
I guess that's where I differed from the pack. Rather than stand there and scream in my head about the lunacy while keeping a stiff smile on my face, my tendency would be to find some way to deal with it so that I wouldn't have to have all the pent up crap.
The "untouchables" had an air of "don't mess with me" and really nothing more. It turned out to be very beneficial to develop a don't mess with me attitude. I don't know if I could have kept that had I entered the corp, but I realized WC wasn't for me.
If someone stands there and makes unreasonable demands and you stand there and say nothing, whose fault is that?
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WordWolf
Another example of this.
Twi thinking says that all the instruments have to be used for all the song, otherwise the song is "good"
but not "best."
Here's a song that violates that thinking. Would it be a better song with more instruments in more of the song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idd_92ajjwY
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU9FwP4uOY8
(That's Evanescence's "My Immortal", for the curious who don't want to click.)
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Watered Garden
Though I cannot find any documentation, I am easonably certain that poem was written by Edgar A. Guest, who wrote many little poems of the wholesome, encouraging sort, all as I recall in iambic pentameter.
WG
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potato
as we've found with so many things post-twi, this isn't a question with a black and white answer.
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Twinky
It occurs to me that since we are all faulty human beings, everything we do will be faulty to some degree.
Isn't that why we are urged to be forgiving of one another??
But to do our best, in any situation, or with what we can do...that's another matter.
Doing our best is sometimes, often, time-limited. Or facilities-limited. Or limited by what we have to work with - is it worth doing an immaculate repair and paint job on a car that spends its time travelling on dirt roads? Does the job meet the need, achieve the purpose? Does it do this without causing danger, irritation or confusion? Well, then, it's done.
Something about the 80/20 rule...80% of the work is done in 20% of the time. Which means that if you spend 80% of the time doing the other 20% of the work - the frills, the perfectionist bits - it's hardly "redeeming the time, for the days are evil," is it?
We were told, God did a perfect work in us when He redeemed us. Therefore we should imitate that perfection.
Last time I checked..I wasn't God. That job's already taken.
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JeffSjo
Dear Excathedra,
Sorry about that not being able to read this business. Take Care and God Bless.
Dear Oneophile,
You know what, you are right, it should have been easy to shooy his b.s. down. But I guess being right in the middle of all this stuff with a big and bogus group think going on while trying to serve God with a clear conscience seemed at times; looking back at it that is; to have left me without the simple answers in the moment when I might have needed them.
Dear DMiller and Tzai,
Thanh you, I think I understand that post better now.
_____________________
What is healthy that is going on right now is a consideration of what good enough really is as it may apply to different situations.
In my former splinter group the whole concept of what was good or excellent was controlled by one man. And everyone else was subject to his various insane thinking patterns as he was the one proclaimed as "the Word in the Flesh." And he was offended by my making light of one of Wierwille's favorite poems. Looking back at those years it seems fair to think that with me this was a fairly regular occurance. But what should have I expected from a sociopath that taught us that Christ would send Wierwille to gather us together to Himself. gaaack!
From what I've heard everyone that stayed in TWI for any length of time, espescially the ones close to top leadership, had to give up their own right to determine for themselves what was good or excellent. And whether this thinking for self was given up to Wierwille or my former chief sociopath it seems clear that the right to think for ourselves was enough of a threat to these type of bastards that we may have been subject to destructive and manipulative behavior.
As far as speaking for myself it seems clear, for me it is history, not opinion anymore. But what I didn't learn until recently was that TWI was every bit as bad as my former splinter group and even worse in some ways.
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chockfull
When you are talking about people that use a religion and a group of people to appease their own psychosis, then good enough will never be good enough. Because it's not actually about the quality of service, it's about that complaining and being dissatisfied is what they are after. It gets them wanted and craved attention, enforces rank in the "household", and makes them think they are more spiritual by upholding some kind of legalistic, unrealistic, and wicked standard. It upholds their sick, psychotic view of themselves, which actually is completely contrary to scripture. Usually the complaint is after the fact, as opposed to seeing effort in training before the fact.
When I face people like this now, I generally look at 'unreasonable' types of expectations as the person holding them is the one with the problem.
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JeffSjo
Once my former splinter leader yelled at someone,"It may be a good idea, but it is not GOD'S Idea!"
As this was pretty close to the time that I was kicked out it had already sunk in that for him to say this was twisted and abusive.
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excathedra
i'm sorry jeff. i didn't mean it that way against your words. i meant thinking about some of that past kind of thinking, leadership, etc.
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