What would you do if you would never be found out?
By Nick Jacobs
Recently, a very successful friend shared with me a list of quotes he had collected over the years from individuals who had influenced him during his career. These quotes came primarily from other successful leaders he had interacted with in the region where he worked.
There were quotes like “Once you figure out what you want to do, don’t zig and zag down the road. Go straight for it.” The quote, “You have to know when and how much to compromise,” came from a politician friend of his. One local millionaire used to tell him, “They’re testing your mettle and trying you on for size.” Another one was “Do what you have to do before you have to do it.” And one that we’ve all heard was “Work smarter, not harder.”
But the most profound quote, the one that caught my attention, was “A true measure of a person is what they would do if they knew they would never be found out.”
Take a minute to let that one sink in.
Try to imagine that you were completely free to do anything in any way your spirit moved you. Many of us might immediately leap to the dark side of our thoughts and begin to imagine getting even with someone or doing illegal things to get rich. Some may think about drugs, sex, and other societal taboos, kind of a “kick out the jams” mindset of burning the candle from both ends and living like we had zero personal morals or boundaries.
If you had unlimited wealth, would you be doing anything differently? Would you be a benevolent despot or a vicious, greedy dictator with an unlimited need to get even with anyone who didn’t bend to your will? Would you live your life completely focused on filling that low-self-image hole in your character with power, glory, money, and continuous recognition?
As a young fundraising professional, I quickly learned that, overall, more money came to our nonprofit organizations from zip codes that were more recognizable as middle- or lower-middle-income areas. Was it because the people living more modestly had struggled, suffered, and saved, and they wanted to help others through their life journeys with less personal pain?
My challenge to you is to approach this last quote not as one of those greedy, self-centered, takers, but imagine what you would do from a completely positive perspective. Focus on how kind, caring, loving, and generous you might be if there was no one judging you, criticizing you, or stopping you, and absolutely no way anyone could find out what you were doing.
When I challenged myself with that assignment, I remembered John Lennon’s lyrics to the song, “Imagine.” It was released in 1971 during the height of our country’s challenges over the war in Vietnam. Although his lyrics emanated from that controversial period, they could apply to Ukraine, Gaza, and Israel, and to the decades we’ve spent since the 1970s engaging in conflicts centered on greed or religion.
I’ve grown tired of the stupidity, inhumanity, and emptiness of a world where we watch people whose religious lives have been determined primarily by where they happened to have been born, killing each other over whose God is better. I’m exhausted by the men who have waged war after war to gain personal wealth and to prove their worth to primarily themselves.
Lennon’s lyrics were a testament to what many of us had dreamed would be the reality of our lives. He describes a world where we are not killing each other over land, religion, race, and possessions. He describes a place where there is “nothing to kill or die for” and where we are “Living in peace.” Imagine a place where we are “sharing all the world.”
“You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one ”
Nick Jacobs is a Windber resident.