I ALWAYS GIVE 110 PERCENT -- I'VE NEVER GOT LESS THAN "A+"

So you never got less than A+.  What are you going to do when you get to college and no one, absolutely no one, is going to be impressed.

The Oxymoron of the Age

Ah, that will tend to make you wonder just what it really means to get more than 100% of anything in life.  I have a personal story about the reality of 100% and the reality of its academic equivalent, the "A" grade.  I was in the lower grades of school and I was being pressured at home to get better grades.  I was constantly being asked why I didn't have 100 here and why I had got only 92 there.  At first, I was defensive and angry and frustrated.  Without getting too personal here, I did not particularly appreciate the root of the complaints.  So, one fine day I decided that I would learn what I wanted to learn and if that meant getting lower grades that mr or miss "whoyamaycallum" in the other seats, so be it.  Of course there came a day when a parent of miss ... bragged about her daughter's grades in front of you know who.  Did I ever hear about that! I didn't lose my cool, I didn't get angry.  I kept on living knowing what I knew and convinced that all I had to learn in life was to be safe and secure with my understanding of life.  After a while it became clear to the parents of this young boy that grades didn't matter to him.  It was at that moment when EFR Dion laid down the law:  "You had better never bring home anything less than 100 in Religion and Conduct."  I never did.  That was and still is MY "A+."  Nothing else matters.  If you conquer those two things, in academia and in life, the rest is nothing but a combustible to keep you warm.

I thought that I had conquered that particular enemy until one day I got a rude awakening.  I was teaching theology for a diocese through the Catholic University tied to the diocese.  I had been there as a lecturer for many years. One season, I gave a final grade of "A-" to a person who was bright but who also had some significant weakness in the area of study that concerned me at the time.  It was like I had personally ignited Kilauea and Pinatubo and Fuji all in a 24 hour period.  In four plus years of participating in the theological studies offered in the program, she had never been graded less than "A+."  To stay on the track of keeping this a short paragraph, I was called before the director of the program, in the presence of the "offended" one.  I gave my side of the story.  I told the director that she was free to change the grade.  I also made it clear that it would be an icy day in Hell when I would change the grade.  In closing, I made clear what I thought of supposedly "intelligent" beings who thought that "A+" was a truly existing reality.  Results?  I was never invited to teach there again.  "A+" still gets awarded.  I'm happy because I do not have to walk through their brand of stercus taurorum any more, neither there nor anywhere else.

There is however a negative side to this kind of inflated evaluation of mediocre performance.  We see it all the time.  It is all around us.  We go around granting mercy to those who are far from deserving of it.  We fall into the trap of expecting to find the person who is performing at 110% and in the process we find ourselves accommodating the individual who performs at 80%.  Look around you and you will see what I mean.  Worse still, the performers themselves fall into the trap of thinking that they are indeed performing at a level that exceeds 100%.  It's not realistic.  The other day  was asked to evaluate a customer service rep from a worldwide communications company.  I was asked to remember that the graph was from 1 through 5 and that I was expected to grant "5's" across the board.  I curtly said, you mark "3" in every box and at the bottom, make a note that the executives of the company should listen to the recording of this call.  What I noted in the recording is not really important here.  What is important here is that the mission to help people is more important than the satisfaction that we derive from it.  If we put our personal gratification before our mission to the world, we are performing at a 3, and possibly less.  There is no A+ nor is there a reality greater than 100%.  Get used to it.  If you do, you will have no reason, absolutely none, to cry at my funeral, because funerals are the ultimate proof that when you reach the end, that is the culmination of your 100%.  Great or minor, it is never more nor less than 100%.  We should not be teaching our followers anything different.