The Expiration Date.

With excited anticipation, she glanced at the bowl filled to the brim with her favorite cereal, sliced bananas, and a few strawberries. She was enthusiastically eager to start consuming the feast, waiting only to add milk to the cereal. After she poured a generous amount of milk onto the contents of the bowl, she took her first big bite, turned up her nose, and let out an exasperated “Yuck”. Realizing that the milk was sour, she inspected the milk cartoon; the expiration date was well past. Why had she not inspected the expiration date before she poured the milk onto the cereal and fruit. What a fool she thought to herself! Her breakfast delight was ruined!

In all aspects of one’s life there are numerous expiration dates which must be faced. Automobile warranties, computer guarantees, and almost every food item all have expiration dates attached to them. Everyone must prepare themselves to know and observe expiration indications for any item that is purchased.

However, the most important expiration date is seldom considered until it is too late, just as the lady who did not inspect the milk cartoon until the damage was done. Few people contemplate their own expiration date, that time when they cease to exist. Death announces an individual’s expiration date. Unfortunately, very few people take the time to consider the import of that all important and final date. Unlike the expiration date on a milk cartoon, a person’s expiration date is unknown. It could be today, tomorrow, or, more likely, sometime in the not-so-near future. But one’s bodily life on earth does have an end date, which may be delayed but not eliminated.

Thus, it is very important to contemplate the consequences of the finality of earthly existence. Each person should consider the reason for his / her existence. Why is any of us here? Do we have a specific purpose to fulfill in the time we have? Is there an existence for us after this life or is this all there is? Is there a God? If so, what does He expect of us? The much admired Greek philosopher Plato reasoned that each person possessed an immortal soul. Assuming that Plato was correct about the immortality of the soul, what does that mean for me? The list of questions seems to be endless, but it is vital for a truly lived human life to carefully contemplate the answers to many key questions about the reason for life.  Great thinkers throughout the ages have presented cogent answers to these questions. They should be examined by everyone of us….and acted upon.

Remember that each one of us has an expiration date which is final. Consider carefully the consequences of this reality.

For Consideration

“In the end, all is gift. Nothing needs to exist, yet it does. To be a Roman Catholic means to be open to this gift and to be charged by it to understand what we really are: persons invited to live within the inner life of the Godhead. We may accept or reject this invitation in the course of our lives. That, finally, is why we are given our lives: to make this choice. All else perhaps matters, but nothing matters so much.”

Schall, Fr. James V. . Catholicism and Intelligence (Living Faith Series) . Emmaus Road Publishing. Kindle Edition.

CEOs and MOTHERS

Many CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) and senior executives of both large and small companies, as well as government organizations often attend prestigious colleges and graduate schools in preparation for their careers in business and government. Additionally, they frequently spend years in positions within their organizations that provide training, experience, and insight. Many of these executives also insist on continuing their education through seminars and the reading of business journals. All of this education costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and an equally exacting commitment of time and energy.

The purpose of all of this education is to prepare the executive to lead an organization in the following areas.

• Creating Strategy and Tactics
• Managing, Motivating, and Caring for employees
• Taking risks (calculated) required to keep the organization viable
• Handling difficult, even disgruntled, though valuable personnel
• Carefully managing finances and financial expenditures (Managing a budget)
• Growing the company

All of this education is indeed valuable and necessary for CEOs to be successful in operating their organizations. Yet it can be suggested that there is one more step necessary to fully complete the education of a senior executive. That is to spend some time observing one or more of the most successful and committed executives in the world.

• An executive who, day in and day out, faces most of the management issues and decisions that are experienced by any senior executive.
• An executive that manages valuable personnel, some of whom possess challenging and difficult personalities at times, yet who are extremely valuable and indispensable to the organization.
• One who manages a budget which contains more restrictions than one that is developed for a company in distress
• One who takes calculated risks in delegating authority to inexperienced personal to monitor new employees
• One who has a plan and willingness to add employees to the organization
• An executive who handles with care the individual who thinks he is the Chairman of Board and has all the answers and thus must be managed with “kid” gloves.

Who is this epitome of executive leadership and craftsmanship? Many of the full time mothers on this world!!!   (This is not to contend that working mothers do not have the same skill set as full time moms.) It is seriously recommended that, part of any executive training; the executive should spend a week monitoring the actions of a mother, one who preferably has three or more small children. It will not take long for the trainee to witness and learn from the mother the qualities of leadership, patience, planning, budgeting, managing difficult personalities that include the personality of the husband, and, most of all, and a caring for the “employees.”

Executive leadership forums, graduate schools, seminars, etc. are all valuable tools for increasing the leadership skills of executives. Real life observations of effective mothers would provide even greater insight and educational value.

I would readily volunteer my wife as a mentor for this training exercise, but our children are now grown and my wife has taken on a new responsibility – helping God organize and manage heaven.

The Fourth Commandment – Honor your Father and Mother…..but especially your Mother.