The Conduct of One Hour

There is an old oriental proverb which reads, “The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.” Sometimes it may not seem to be just and fair for such short intervals to be so all-important, for things that matter so much to be made and unmade by the act of one moment, of for the labor of a lifetime to be laid low by one ill-advised hour. But it isn’t the length of time that matters so much as what goes before, or what has happened inside, to make any particular act or action possible: the qualities of character, the habits, the thinking that precede our performance. Some things we do, no doubt, are only inadvertent acts, and some may be unmistakable accidents; but there is a set of background circumstances that leads to every act and incident. The word that cannot be recalled, the deed that cannot be undone⎯these may be only occurrences of carelessness, or they may be evidence of something more significant inside. We all make mistakes, but when a man makes a serious mistake, he must expect to be placed on probation in the opinion of other people until they satisfy themselves as to whether the mistake was an inadvertent error or an indication of some corrosion of character, some lack of loyalty, some perversion of principle. Of course, people can repent, and when repentance is sincere, we must accept it. We can and must forgive a repentant person for a momentary misstep. But it is often easier for men to forgive than to forget, and somehow old errors may keep cropping up⎯and this is only one reason, besides what happens inside, why it is so everlastingly important to be on guard against the ill-advised action of any one moment, of any one hour, or of all the hours of life. The reputation of a lifetime⎯and many things even much more important than reputation⎯may be determined by the conduct of one hour or by the misstep of a moment. There is no doubt of it, there is a premium paid for constancy and consistency of performance: there is a premium paid for enduring consistently to the end.