ES Kirunda
Having the right ethical disposition about the world is not enough. You must also have the necessary work-ethic that can actually bring about lasting value in the economic affairs you undertake.
I. In my first book **The Fourth Heritage**, I discussed how the two main groups of people who have created developed societies in the modern world are the Protestant Europeans and wherever they have migrated to, and the Far-East Asians. I quoted that “Some have argued that a Confucian work ethic gave East Asia the functional equivalent of a Protestant work ethic, a religious or psychological motivation to work hard”. It’s fair to state that wherever other peoples have exhibited the said work-ethic, those other people have also developed. Without accepting the fundamental reality of this characteristic in who is developed/advanced in the modern civilization, many of us remain blind to its wisdom. I have learnt two characteristics about these two societies of people.
II. One, for the Far East Asians, their collective psychology is found in their ancient texts. In the great Chinese foundational text the Tao Te Ching, the wise master advises that “**A journey of 1000 miles, starts with one step…Failure is an opportunity, if you blame someone else [for your shortcomings], there is no end to the blame”.** There is a direct correlation between the above-mentioned philosophy and the way the Far East Asian live their lives. If you have observed their working habits, one thing you must accept is that they work hard without spending a lot of their energies complaining about why they were colonized or conquered in the past. I have internalized the wisdom that blaming others for my shortcomings will never lead me to solving my problems. This is because I will never run out of good excuses to keep blaming someone else. I should avoid having the mentality of an eternal victim.
III. Two, the German Protestants were the first people to assert that one’s pre-occupation with worldly work is as good as spending all efforts in Church business. However, working in the world means all kinds of hardships and blood and sweat. You will fall, you will go astray. Nonetheless, however much you fall while doing the hard work of creating value in this world, you can always be forgiven. The psychology of a forgiving God comes mainly from that memorable line in the Bible when Jesus cried out while dying on the cross that “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing”. I am just a sinner who can never be like Jesus (who finds it easy to live up to dictates like ‘love your enemies the way you love your friends’), however, I can learn the wisdom about ‘forgiveness’. Knowing an ever-forgiving God releases your mental energies to accept that as you stumble and fall in your ventures in life, it is okay. The more I have internalized the moral of ‘forgiveness’, the more I have become a better human being.
IV. As an African, I can see that our traditional cultures have failed to lead us to development in the modern era due to our failure to attain a psychological depth that brings forth a work-ethic equal to the Protestant or the Confucian work ethic. We look at Germany, Sweden, North America, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China, etc, and we falsely attribute their development to other factors.
V. So even if we must eradicate the negative emotions that come from not forgiving the people who have wronged us and blaming others for our shortcomings, more importantly, we must internalize a WORK ETHIC that is the real catalyst for adding value to our economic activities. The African existence in this modern civilization will be advanced or respectable only when we have collectively adopted a working culture that is comparable to the people who are defining the modern world.
• Whether you consider yourself religious or not, a good person or not, do you have the necessary work-ethic that can produce long-lasting value in the economic affairs you engage in?
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