Stewardship & Sustainability

I love peanut M&M's.  That chocolaty crunch gets me every time.  I pop one in my mouth, crack it down the middle with my teeth; the peanut separates from the chocolate and then I grind the whole thing and savor the taste.  Seeing a jar full of peanut M&M's is also very satisfying.  I can hardly help myself, if I walk in a room and see a jar of those delicious pebbles, I scoop a handful and begin to munch on them!

Years ago, I heard story about a jar of M&M's.  This world-famous rock band toured many, many cities.  As part of their contract with venues, they put a clause in that demanded all brown M&M's be removed.  You're probably thinking, "what the hell??  They must be prima-donnas!"  But there is more to it than that!

Think of it - this huge rock band production has literally tons of equipment that is hauled around from city to city.  Their concert schedule is very tight and there are thousands of things on the list to do in order for them to pull off a successful and safe concert.  The venue host has to be able to meet the demands of the band efficiently and quickly.  So the band produces a contract, provides it to the venue ahead of time.  And this contract is very detailed and if even one demand is not met, such as verifying the weight of the stage will support the band and the equipment, then the band's safety is in danger.  The band doesn't have time to verify the entire contract, but they want to be sure it has been met.  So that put a clause in there that demands brown M&M's be removed from the jar that is in their backroom.  When the band shows up, and sees brown M&M's they know the host has not read the contract! (link)

We live in a world that demands people get shit done!  We have busy lives and in some business and industries, there is a lot of complexity.  People are assigned duties and work and they are expected to GyShiDo!  In a more professional term, this is called stewardship.  You have been given some task; now you must steward it to completion.  If you complete a task, you might be given another one of equal or greater weight.  Once you string together multiple tasks for a consistent amount of time, you will be given more and weightier tasks and responsibilities, with greater complexity and difficulty.  People who show the ability to handle these problems "level up" in life.

In our capitalistic society, we reward people who can sustain their good stewardship.

A kid learns to take care of their body, their clothes, their room, their possessions, their friendships, their grades, their hourly wage job, their middle school and high school courses, and then their college courses.  If they complete the thousands of tasks during those years, they will graduate and most likely find a job and begin their career.  The cycle of stewardship and sustainability continues.  This is how winners are made.

So when you don't feel like cleaning up after yourself in the kitchen or if you don't want to organize your room, just remember you are making bad grooves and habits in your life.  Learn what it takes to get your shit done and then GyShiDo!