On Improving Other People

Perhaps most of us at times feel a wholesome dissatisfaction with ourselves. But it would seem that we more often feel dissatisfaction and impatience with the faults and failures of others. When we have someone do something for us, it often annoys us if it isn’t done as well as we think it should be done. We are perturbed when others make what seem to us to be wrong decisions. We are annoyed when we see someone else miscarry an opportunity, or miss the mark in any activity. We are inclined to do our share of side line coaching and to be critical of those who are doing the playing. It isn’t easy to sit by and watch someone else fumble, when we are convinced that we could do what they are doing in less time, with greater skill. At times it is difficult for us to let even our children learn by doing, because our fingers are itching to do for them what we know we can do better than they. But every man and every child must have his opportunity to think, to decide, and to do. Life has to be learned by all of us. If only the skillful and the able were permitted to perform, there would be no chance for anyone else to become skillful or able. With some exceptions, almost anyone can learn to make his own way in life and to be useful in his own generation. But the most successful leaders of men are those who discover early that there is no good purpose in putting square pegs into round holes. Men have different gifts and abilities, different ambitions and objectives, and we shall save ourselves much disappointment if we learn to quit expecting racehorse performance where there isn’t racehorse capacity. We have to take men as we find them and help them to be useful according to their capacityand not according to ours. We shall never find anyone who will do anything exactly as we would do it. Nor would the Lord God do it exactly as we would do itbut He respects our honest efforts. And should we become too impatient in our search for perfection in others, perhaps we can bridle our impatience with the reminder of these quoted lines:

And in self-judgment if you find
Your deeds to others are superior,
To you has Providence been kind,
As you should be to those inferior.
Example sheds a genial ray
Of light, which men are apt to borrow,
So, first, improve yourself today
And then improve your friends tomorrow.