S ir Roger is returned from the Mountain with the Migently Mountain Manifesto.
Here are Tablets One to Five: 

 

1. 

Do what is right.  

 

2. 

 You are safe.

Now, at this instant, you are safe.
You are safe, right here, right now.

This might allow you to calm down and get a grip to deal with stuff.

Nothing is promised for the next instant, however.

But right now at this instant you are safe.  

  

3. 

Most people are about as honest and ethical as they can afford to be.

Yes, some people are less honest than they could be.
Some struggle to be honest at all.
Some are frankly more honest than is necessary or comfortable.

The value of honesty is relative.
People will steal a loaf of bread if they really have to.
They may not want to but if that’s what they must do to feed their children then they will do what they need to.

Some things are more important and more pressing — in the moment in real life — than esoteric debates about morality.

It’s true that some people exhort you to be honest.
Other people want you to be honest. 
They don’t want you to be honest for your benefit. 
They want you to be honest for their benefit, so that they can make informed decisions based on reliable reports.

In reality, though, most people don’t make decisions based on facts anyway.

On the other hand, being honest places less stress on the memory.
And it (sometimes) makes you feel better.

Telling the truth is a different matter.

There is no such as THE Truth.
There’s my truth and your truth, for a start. 
What most people mean by ‘the truth’ is merely opinion and interpretation based on life experience, emotion, limited information, conjecture, flawed logic, magical thinking, and vague probabilities.

There’s the “whole” truth. 

No, just joking. If there is a “whole truth”, it’s impossible to know because — for just one thing — you would have to describe the velocity and position of every fundamental particle in the Universe from the beginning of time.
You
can’t tell both the position and velocity in any case, and if you could even get the information in a whole lifetime you wouldn’t get past describing the first billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second of the Universe. Let alone interpreting the data. 

The best you can do is describe the best interpretation of the motley collection of tiny random scraps of perception you can grasp as they rush by.

Then there’s the “ABSOLUTE” Truth.

There isn’t one.

So stop killing people because you mistakenly think you have it.  

 

4. 

A Job is trading time for money.

But your time — your life itself — is of immeasurable, incalculable value.

Your Job is something you do because you have to, to survive financially, pay the bills, feed the kids, pay the rent or the mortgage. 

Your Work is something you want to do, something you must do — so it is also something you do because in that sense you have to do. 

It’s something you “have” to do because it’s an expression of who you are.
It’s your contribution to the world. It’s the difference you make because you are you and because you can.

For example, a teacher has two basic jobs:

1) spend time in a room with people and

2) do paperwork.

Being in a classroom is how we know you are doing your job. The paperwork is how we know you did your Job.

A teacher’s Work on the other hand is growing people, inspiring them, helping them learn to learn, to love learning, to appreciate life, to contribute to the world, to experience the most of the world that they can, as richly as they can.

The “Dignity of Labour” is a myth.
It is born of a conspiracy cooked up by capital and colluded with by labour, probably beginning during the Industrial Revolution, if not even earlier in the feudal era.

Capital needed — and still needs — workers to be as close to compliant slaves as possible.
Long hours, dirty work, few rights and low wages stopped people getting notions too far above themselves, or amassing the savings to escape.
It kept them needing the employer and the job.
Labour needed a social mythology to justify its powerless dependency — and the degradation of selling its soul to make others rich.

The solution was to frame labour as bestowing “dignity”. 

And eventually it became a fact instead of a pretence.
And it didn’t hurt to have the (obscenely rich) Church bestowing God’s blessing on the charade.

Blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry, for they shall eventually get all the good stuff.
Just not in this life. 

As a result “early to bed and early to rise” assumed a moral character to the point where anyone who gets out of bed after 6am or goes to bed later than 10pm is committing a “sin”.

This is all bullshit. Any job in which you give over your labour and your time and your life to make someone else rich is shameful, degrading and humiliating and not dignified at all. It would be a sin if there were such a thing.  

If there were such a thing it would be a sin not to do Your Work, the Work you must do, the Work you love.

Be the person you are who makes a difference in the world.  

 

5. 

Great leaders (and managers) don’t manage people (or boss them).

Leaders manage outcomes.
They do this by facilitating people in doing what they know how to do — which, after all, is why they were employed in the first place — and in developing skills to do it better.

Leaders share a vision which inspires and engages.
They provide meaningful goals and engage their colleagues in the value of the work they do.

People who work for coercive managers do the least they can in order to keep their jobs.
They have low job satisfaction and low productivity because they don’t own the work they do.

People who work for inspiring managers do the most they can because they want to and they want to because they own their work and they know why it matters.

That is why they have such great work satisfaction. And that is why they stay.

 

Most people want to do a good job.

A good manager doesn’t have to force people to do their best.

A good manager knows to get out of the way of people doing their best.

 

Almost everyone wants to do the best work they can. 

Thank you for reading this far!  You might think producing a post like this takes a bit of work. 
It does! If you’ve appreciated it you might consider encouraging me. ( We all like validation! )   

Buy Me A Coffee

All posts

Categories

You might also like:

Lynton Crosby Outed

  . . . as Dutton’s Mews Muse (probably)   ir Roger has it on authority from multiple sources that the “Dead Cat on the Table” ploy, most recently fed to and trotted out by Peter Dutton, is the signature work of one Lynton Crosby....

Anzac Day 2011

  Carnage incomparable, and human squander    On this Anzac Day: f there is one thing that can be said of war it is that it is a massive betrayal of Humanity. It is a monstrous failure of human imagination, vision, ingenuity and intelligence....

Rentier Socialists

  Not Gough in his heyday    J ust (sorry) Sir Roger thinks IT’S TIME to refer back to the recent squabble about certain t-shirts and heap some shit on those who assert ownership of the commonly used English phrase “It’s time”. Universities once — in all the...

It’s Time, Mick

after Mr FishIt's Time t’s time for Mick Keelty to resign. Or be sacked. Either way, he has to go: A senior counter-terrorism officer with the Australian Federal Police has testified that police were directed to charge “as many...

Jefferson Says – Reboot

President Kennedy told a gathering of Nobel Prize winners at the White House, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas...

What Cheney Really Thinks

Invading Baghdad Would Create a Quagmire   n this interview from April 15th, 1994 Dick Cheney reveals the reasons why invading Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein's regime wouldn't be a great idea. He also stipulates that "not very many"...

You Can’t Handle the Truth!

  ... This was a lie and we could not let them publish it ...   e keep thinking of Jack Nicholson's character's justification for the secrecy that governments and their institutions maintain over their citizens – that is to say, their...

The Nation That Hangs Together

The Nation that Hangs Together Hangs Together   The glorious lynching of Saddam was not meant to be “unprofessional", and "disgusting". No, no! According to Iraq’s National Security Adviser, the noted humanitarian, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie: “This was supposed to be a...

Ordinary Australians Lose Automatic Citizenship

Ordinary Australians are terrified by a new test the Australian Government is planning to introduce.

A Beautiful Thing

US Policy Adviser redefines “Beauty” We have noticed a report that Kenneth Adelman has claimed that what the Coalition has done in Iraq is “a beautiful thing”. And we agree whole-heartedly. It’s a pity so few people now are able to see it this way. It just takes a...

Drugs are Bad

 M’Kay?   mean, some drugs are bad. Just bad. Some drugs are good, like medicine. Some drugs, well, they’re legal even if they kill you, like cigarettes, or, like alcohol, kill other people you run into. But drugs drugs are just B-A-D. Inherently....

Now LOOK ….

   Not this bloody time   W e have held it in for a very long time but today was the last straw. For seeming ages journalists have been describing people who defend themselves against legal allegations, or who mount arguments against legal charges, as...

Afghanistan Photos

Bad Apples? or Bad Apple Tree?   hen will they get it? Or do they get it and try to hide the truth about the Afghanistan photos before anyone notices they’ve got it? First the disclaimer: To gloatingly photograph yourself with a slain enemy...

Ordinary Australians Lose Automatic Citizenship

Ordinary Australians are terrified by a new test the Australian Government is planning to introduce.

Costello and Iran

Peter Costello reaching out to his future subjects Our loyal visitors,   anting to know how to react to Peter Costello’s decision to disappear up his own arse at long last, may have been waiting with bated breath to hear Sir Roger’s wisdom on...

Lynton Crosby Outed

  . . . as Dutton’s Mews Muse (probably)   ir Roger has it on authority from multiple sources that the “Dead Cat on the Table” ploy, most recently fed to and trotted out by Peter Dutton, is the signature work of one Lynton Crosby....

Joan Sutherland and Me

  Vale Saint Joan    ir Roger wishes to make a special personal note of his sadness at the death, of La Stupenda, Dame Joan Sutherland; the loss of one of the truly greats. Her career properly began when “she won a two-year scholarship for...

‘Compassionate’ Costello Reach-around

  Costello reaches out to the downtrodden ... [Drawing by Tony King, 1969]   ... The electorate merely retches. r Costello said that in the election campaign he would talk about what Australia needs for its future, in particular drawing the...

Why NOT Benny Condoms?

  Okay, it can’t be avoided.   ir Roger wrote this in a fit a few weeks ago and he was in a variety of minds as to whether he ought to publish it. Was it intemperate? Of course. It was Sir Roger. Anything else? Was it wrong? Sir Roger, on...

Every Cloud Has a Saliva Lining

    After Pavlov [Apologies to the source of the original of this image whose provenance we do not know.]

Big Bang Time Free Willy

Watch Time Disappear  When Sir Roger was a young man (yes), his university offered a soft course for the scientifically inquisitive but mathematically challenged called The History and Philosophy of Science. Naturally this was universally and derogatorily referred to...

Bundy Rum 2011 NSW Election

  Swine Flu, brought to you by SPAM    t’s all the rage these days. Not so long ago, as we were basking in the great spiritual joy of the Wetchex World Youth Day, we reflected also on the overwhelming success of the then recent Crown Casino...

Let Them Eat Yellowcake

Carlo Bonini           STATE OF THE UNION 2003: " Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of Uranium from Africa." Or not ...   Well, as Bill Moyers reminds us, it wasn’t true. It was all a forgery, perpetrated in Rome. And Carlo Bonini, the Italian...

Why the Long Face?

Joining the Elite ow do you think Australia’s economy is going, compared to the rest of the world? Sir Roger wonders because some rainbow-lovers say it’s magnificent and some shrill hurricane chasers say we’re going to hell in a handbasket and doom...

Clive of Kogarah

Clive James with Bill Moyers   ill Moyers recently hosted Clive James on his show to talk about his new book, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts (not the 80s punk band). Publishers Weekly  says:...

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 4

  16. Nobody knows what the fuck is “really” going on. Anyone who claims to know is either deluded, a liar, or a charlatan who is after your money, or your body, or naked power. The people who are most likely to claim they do are priests, fools and politicians...

We’ll All Be Rooned, Said Hanrahan

  Hooray for the Rain! (if you got it) In praise of the recent rain here is the most Strayan of Australian pomes; Hanrahan versing the elements. True Australian values. Pure Poa Tree.  SAID HANRAHAN by John O’Brien e’ll all be rooned,”...

Sir Roger Gets Ogd

  es. It’s true! After everything he has said, Sir Roger’s scepticism has been swept away by his discovery of a new, an alien, religion. And who would not want to be part of such powerful theatre, such wondrous ceremony, gorgeous ritual and...

DIC to the Rescue!

Life-Hack: How to satisfy yourself!    e reported yesterday [Black Breath of the Nazgûl] that the terrorist legislation implicitly requires you to satisfy yourself that anyone to whom you provide a service, item or product of any kind —  which...

‘My Culture the Bastard Child’

his angry, loving, passionate, poetic piece from John White was a comment on the previous post but we love it so much we do not want it lost in the wastes of commentdom. It deserves to be shared with you. So here it is:  Australian Values,...

0 Comments