"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected." That little gem was said by Steve Jobs. And he is right. There is a reason that Apple products are so highly regarded. That's because their products are innovative and useful to the consumer...unlike some of the stuff that is for sale out there.
I don't know if its me, but I just don't see quality work any more. A lot of the products on the market today, no matter which product category you look at, seem to be junk. The last three air conditioners I have bought have lasted about two years. None of them worked very well to begin with, and then they just ended up dying. The brands were General Electric and Haier. Granted I gave Haier a try twice since one of them I suspected may have gotten hit by lightning. Still even before they broke, all three of them would have to be shut down at some point due to ice building up on the coils. Okay, so no luck with air conditioners, so what. What bout vacuums. I have hardwood floors throughout my house, so vacuums really don't get a hard workout on the four throw rugs I have. Even so, we go through about one vacuum a year and about five belts for each of them. When I was younger, vacuums worked for ever. We had one for about fifteen years when I was a kid. Now, it's one year tops! Well, maybe I am the only one having a bad time with appliances. So what about food and household products? Has anyone noticed that prices for common food stuffs have skyrocketed in price since we were kids? And when the prices don't go up, the size of the packages get smaller. A perfect example is found in pretzels. Pretzels haven't changed at all in fifty years. Yet the box that cost me $0.50 when I was a kid now cost me $1.39. They are the same pretzels... no improvements. The same size package...yet the price has more than doubled. This is not really a quality problem. At least not with the pretzels. The problem here is with the quality of our currency. The U.S. government (the Federal Reserve actually) has depreciated the dollar so much that prices have risen just to cover the depreciation in our currency. It is disgusting and it needs to stop! But this is a topic for a different blog post entirely. To get back to the quote at the top of the page, I think everyone needs to focus and make their LIVES the yardstick of quality. Do this by making sure that everything you do is done to the best of your abilities. So many people cut corners in their lives and then wonder why they are unhappy. We all have inner pictures of how we are. The more we cheat and take the easy way out, the more our inner picture gets distorted. It must be hard to hold a good self image of yourself if you are constantly lying. It must be hard to picture yourself as a success if you are constantly cutting corners or just saying something is good enough, even though you know in your heart that the job wasn't done properly. Words and thoughts have power. The more you give yourself the opportunity to look down on yourself, the harder it will be to build your self esteem. No one can do this for you. I can tell my daughters I think they are great everyday, but as long as they are doing things that lower their own self worth, they will never benefit from my praise. AND if I praise them about something I know is not true, then I can't honestly build my own self esteem either. I try to encourage my daughters every day. But I will not encourage them about something that isn't true. I might find something else to encourage them about, but I won't encourage them about something that isn't true. In the end, it is up to all of us to deliver quality in our own lives. No matter what I give my daughters, I can't build their self esteem. They have to do that on their own. Only they know how hard they worked on anything or how well something they did really is. To grow, they need to deliver quality. And so do I, if I want to grow as a person. Tonight, think of something you can do tomorrow where you can deliver real quality. When tomorrow comes do it! And do it to the best of your ability. After completing the task, see if you don't feel better about yourself. I know I will!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2021
Categories
All
|