Yesterday while watching the Epic movie “Saving Private Ryan” the dying words of Tom Hanks character, Capt. Miller “James… earn this. Earn it.” kept ringing in my ears for a long time.
These look very simple words but can be a very life changing experience if the true meaning and the depth behind the words is understood.
If one understands the true meaning of them, once can achieve great success and would also be in a better position to understand and accept any situation.
Let’s review some interesting cases where this can be applied:
Love : When we meet somebody from the opposite sex, we present our best picture. What happens when our true selves come out. It becomes a wasteland of broken dreams, promises and messy relationships.
What we should be actually doing is working each day to EARN the love and respect of each other . Initially attraction might be a chemical reaction but you got to keep the fires burning to sustain the relationship.
Relationships : In a family, we have multiple relationships – with our parents, our siblings and cousins. We normally take them from granted and don’t value them as we are caught up in our web of life. But we need to EARN them and keep them fresh so a relationship does not become a ship with no relations.
Work : An employee joins an organization by passing the rigorous interview test and then for the first 3 – 6 months or even one year till the first increment, he works his heart out and gets a promotion and a nice raise or even a moderate raise. Then the performance goes downhill or stagnates. He thinks he has EARNED it but stops looking at the constant EARNING that is required to maintain and improve his performance. He blames everyone but himself and does not consider that he is still getting a salary which he needs to EARN and needs to EARN his increments as well.
Same goes for the organization. A company hires the best resources, gives them a nice raise from the previous jobs but fails to maintain and EARN their trust and challenge and reward them later on. The organization will not rise if it stops EARNING its employees.
Business: A business signs up a client by promising the moon, delivers for a few months and things go downhill. The business needs to constantly EARN his client to improve performance and profitability.
In all the above cases, we find that when we stop EARNING and become complacent and demand something as a birthright, we start to lose the plot.
Let’s EARN it to ENJOY it.