“It’s good to remember that while we often think of saints as the ultimate perfectionists, in the Catholic tradition, the saints were not always, well, saintly,” says the NY Times article, It’s Just Fine to Make Mistakes, March 11th. “The Catholic calendar is full of notorious men and women who turned their lives around and became saints . . . St. Camillus de Lellis was an Italian mercenary soldier, a card sharp and con man. For six years, St. Margaret of Cortona lived as a Tuscan nobleman’s mistress. St. Moses the Ethiopian led a gang of cutthroats in the Egyptian desert. And St. Pelagia was the porn queen of 5th-century Antioch . . . Of course, they went through great suffering to become saints — but the point is they made their fair share of mistakes . . . And most of us are not — and more important should not be — aiming for canonization.” We’re not aiming for canonization; but we want to be a developed economy – and reduce poverty?
“Being a perfectionist is not a bad thing; in fact, it may mean you have very high standards and you often achieve those standards. Those who have perfectionist tendencies, but those tendencies do not rule — or ruin — their lives, are what psychiatrists call “adaptive” perfectionists . . . On the other hand, what psychiatrists call “maladaptive” perfectionists . . . can also sabotage their own success. They do not turn in projects on time because they’re not yet perfect. They can’t prioritize what needs to be done quickly and what needs more time to complete. They want to rigidly follow rules to get things “right,” and this often means they’re terribly uncreative, because creativity involves making mistakes . . . Even worse, they don’t learn from their mistakes, because if, God forbid, one occurs, it should be concealed like a nasty secret. So they cannot get crucial feedback — feedback that would both stop them from making similar mistakes in the future and make them realize that it is not a disaster — because they won’t risk punishment or alienation for a blunder.”
This blog has talked about the ‘Dutch disease’ – brought about by our reliance on OFW remittances, and took our focus away from designing and pursuing strong economic fundamentals? Where we are as an economy – and as a country – is for us to fix? But we won’t fix something we don’t see as broken especially if the spoils come our way? And to be self-critical could prick our self-esteem? Yet to pursue a goal, it is imperative to recognize both strengths and weaknesses, e.g., SWOT or Force Field analysis. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_field_analysis). But the human senses could play tricks? Were the senses of German and US intelligence agencies deadened by Curve Ball’s story re Iraq’s WMD – they ‘missed’ the hoax, reports 60 Minutes? A FARC hostage in the jungles of Columbia was electrified to hear his mother’s voice over the radio (that the group secretly kept from their captors) that he could not recall a word – and asked several times, “What did my mother say?”[Out of captivity, Marc Gonsalves, et. al., 2009, Harper Collins]
The writer has witnessed other countries going through their economic cycles – and how enterprises and nations themselves dealt with them. And, representing USAID/IESC, he shared the stories with his Eastern European friends. He thought he had done his part after a couple of months. But they talked him into ‘continuing the journey’: “You would see history unfold; we’ve made wrong choices for decades – and found ourselves with the shorter end of the stick. Now we want to pursue a different path – become a market and open economy – like what you’ve seen in more progressive nations.” Indeed they embraced a new set of assumptions . . . only to see that their economy would shrink over several years from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the domino first fell. It was not until 9 years after did they see economic growth . . . and then over the 10-year period, 1997 to 2007, their economy expanded over 224 %. They tasted the one step back, two steps forward phenomenon. Hopefully they’ve been toughened up – and are now better equipped to deal with cycles in their economy, including the Great Recession c/o Western greed?
We, Filipinos, have to bite the bullet: it will take time and great efforts to erect the strong economic building blocks that will make us competitive? Adolescents – sheltered or otherwise – go through the experience? Development has its costs . . . but underdevelopment is more prohibitive, e.g., massive poverty? The key is setting higher expectations, focusing, prioritizing, being creative and transparent; not nibbling at the edges – distracted by compromises, and losing the principle that ought to drive the enterprise? Simply put, we must have the political will to be a developed nation?
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