Counting the Cost; The Aftermath of Being a Teacher

Reading my previous entry entitled The Irony of Being a Teacher will provide the reader with the context needed to understand this blog.

Although some may think that I did the right thing by telling the young man that my car door nicked his truck, this experience was actually a wake-up call for me. I have reflected upon it several times since and have given the prior blog as my spiritual thought in each of the accounting classes I teach. The thing that bothers about my response to the experience, is that it wasn't made instinctively. Rather, I conducted a mental analysis of the situation before coming to the conclusion that I must tell the owner of the truck what I had done. The fact that fear entered my heart was most instructive. I should have reflexively set out to find the owner of the truck; that should have been my first and only thought Hence, my final decision was right, but the process of arriving at it was all wrong!

I have been faced with much larger and more important decisions involving integrity and, in each case, responded appropriately. Hence, I thought I had made the decision to be honest long ago. Yet, when faced with the events of last Monday evening, I found myself assessing whether I should be honest. Of course, I should! Why should a matter, small in comparison, demand so much emotional, spiritual, and intellectual capital? That's the question that has been tormenting me since the incident.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a prior member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, addressed the subject of making decisions and concluded that some decisions need to be made only  once. Once made, we should allow our righteous reflexes to make any subsequent choices tied to that decision:

Now, since we are not always free to choose just when and how all of life’s interactions will occur, we are nevertheless free to choose our responses to these moments. Since we can’t compute beforehand all our responses, it becomes vital to set our course as immortals on the basis of immortal principles to be applied as reflexively as possible. Besides, there may be no time in which to ponder how we will respond anyway. If, for example, one determines that he will keep the seventh commandment, then his applying this fixed principle will result in temptations either being deliberately avoided in the first place or in being quickly deflected. All of this can be achieved without great thought, risk, or needless anxiety. In fact, I would go so far as to say to you tonight, my brothers and sisters, that  if we are truly attached to immortal principles, some decisions need to be made only once, really, and then righteous reflexes can do the rest. Absent such fixed determinations, however, one can be tossed to and fro by temptations that then require case-by-case agonizing. (Maxwell, Neal A., The Pathway of Discipleship, January 4, 1998).

Elder Maxwell was so right! . . . and now I am embarrassed of all my mental gyrations described in my prior blog in coming to the decision to be honest.

In an interesting article published in the Deseret News National Edition on Wednesday, March 12 2014, entitled "What makes us lie and cheat and what we can do about it", reporter Sara Israelsen-Hartley wrote regarding her interview of Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and author of "The Honest Truth about Dishonesty." One aspect of the interview that was of significant interest to me was the Dr. Ariely's comment that "when you make decisions, even if you make the right decision, the temptation itself created a cost." Continuing, he explained:

Imagine that your morning is full of temptation: muffin, croissant, Facebook, YouTube, saying something nasty to your boss, the morning is just full of temptation. And you've been able to resist [all of them;], good for you, but by the time you've resisted all of them, you've already paid the price. And the price you've paid is the price of depletion. So temptation is tough to deal with, but temptation has also this consequential cost that comes later that we don't see. You could be a great person overcoming temptation, but you'd be much better off not facing this temptation to start with.

Resisting temptation can drain the soul. Think of the torment that is experienced by the man who, because of weakly viewing pornography, weekly covers the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out insomuch that the Lord regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at the man's hand (see Malachi 2:13). What prevents this desolation and depletion of emotional, spiritual, and intellectual capital is "setting our course as immortals on the basis of immortal principles to be applied as reflexively as possible."

As I concluded evaluating what happened Monday evening, my mind was drawn to Moses 5:23, wherein, the Lord instructed Cain that the distance between sin and safety is the width of a door. Confronting my integrity this week would have been far more enriching if, when I opened the car door, I kept the door to temptation closed. Developing our spiritual reflexes to think the right thing saves us from having to pay the price of resisting temptation over and over and over . . ..

The Irony of being a Teacher

Last evening, I stayed late after work to meet with a student and discuss a matter involving academic dishonesty. I spent 30 minutes giving a home-spun lesson on integrity. It included a significant story from my life wherein I resigned my employment due to ethical issues, and other such stuff. After we concluded, I rushed off from the University to pick up several pizzas for dinner. It was 6pm and a significant windstorm was bringing in an early-evening winter storm. As I arrived at Pizza Hut and was exiting my vehicle, a gust of wind caught hold of my opened door and swung it into the Tacoma truck parked beside me.

We have all had the unpleasant experience of arriving at our vehicle to find a small door-ding freshly implanted in the side without a word from the perpetrator. How we wish that the guilty party would have simply left a message! Sometimes, its the gesture of honesty for which our soul yearns, rather than the chance to get an entire paint-job done on one side of our vehicle.

Well . . . like many who have become perpetrators of this innocent crime, my mind immediately filled with all the reasons to excuse myself from properly taking responsibility. I immediately tried to wipe the scratch off with my thumb. I retrieved a old blanket from my trunk and aggressively wiped the slight scratch. Although most of it disappeared, it was still apparent. As I walked towards the entrance to Pizza Hut, my mind was filled with a myriad of emotions: "It's so small that I won't need to mention it. Anyways, this was an accident and not your fault. There's a lot of other vehicles in the parking lot and I won't be able to find the owner of this one, so just let it go. You're making too much of a little thing."

As I entered through the first of the two doors that provide entrance into the restaurant, I turned around and saw placed on the cab of the pickup that familiar emblem denoting a pizza delivery truck. I was further indicted by this fact since any excuse to avoid admitting responsibility was no longer available. As I entered through the second door into the eating establishment, my mind returned to the lesson I had taught just moments before in my office to a young student, and my fearful heart melted away. I knew then, that, whatever the cost, I must find the owner of the truck.

I began to ask around. No one behind the counter knew who the owner might be. A young woman said she would go into the back of the restaurant to ask around. After 3-4 minutes she returned with a young man who confirmed that he was the truck's owner. We exchanged greetings and I invited him to accompany me out to his truck that I might show him what I had done. When he looked at the small scratch, he said, "It's okay. It's not very big." I concurred that it wasn't. However, I then invited him to step back and look at the ding from a slight angle. He did so, and I pointed out that he would be able to see an ever so slight dent that accompanied the scratch. "Hmmm, yes I can", he continued, "but it's okay." Not yet satisfied with my confession, I handed him my business card. You see, I was twice his age. I was dressed in a full, dark suit, white shirt, and tie. He was dressed in Levis and tennis shoes. He was somewhat timid and I am often overbearing. We were on uneven playing fields--His environment and this circumstance was far too intimidating for him to say anything other than to accept what had happened. I turned to him and said: "If you ever change your mind concerning what you would like to see done in regards to this incident, you have my business card. Please call me."

I arrived home with the pizzas, breadsticks, and soda just in time to save two of my favorite girls--my wife and youngest daughter--from near starvation. The three of us sat around the table eating dinner and hearing another lesson taught by me that honesty matters . . . even in little things.

The irony of a lesson on integrity is that you are only a teacher when you live it. Otherwise, you remain a professor . . . drawing near to the principle with your lips, but having a heart removed far from it.