Do. Your. Job.

As my time in the Corps of Cadets is coming to an end, I have had the opportunity to look back at some of the lessons I have learned over the last four years. I've learned a lot about leadership and followership, mostly by making mistakes. The biggest lesson I've learned is as difficult to execute as it is simple to understand.

Do your job.

It seems simple, but I and others have wasted vast amounts of time and energy doing anything but. In the Corps, as in just about any organization, there is always something going wrong, something to worry, argue, complain, or debate about. There are always people who could be doing their job better, and there are always things that need to be done better. On the other side, there are always personal goals that we all have, either to do community service, grow in our relationship with God, or develop friendships with those around us. The problem that arises is when we neglect to fulfill our responsibilities and chase instead after other things, whether relationships or personal pleasures.

Too often we worry about the people who are not taking care of their responsibilities, and spend valuable time and energy complaining or gossiping about people who are not doing their job, time and energy that could be better spent completing our assigned tasks and leading those around us. Very often, if you perform your job well, you can cover for the mistakes or failures of others and you can set a good example for your subordinates and peers, which will in turn elevate their performance. People who do their job well consistently for long periods of time can build amazing amounts of influence and credibility. It does not happen overnight, but if day in and day out you show up and give 100% of your effort to do your job and then to help others, you will be able to have a positive impact beyond what you imagine.

I've often heard my dad talk about those Christians who are "so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good", and in the Corps I've seen people like this a lot. The Christians who had the most impact for Christ were not the ones who went to all the bible studies, were at church every Sunday  or made every christian retreat, but the ones who did their jobs well. I don't mean to belittle these things, they are very healthy and important for good christian growth. However, I have seen time and again young Christians come back from a bible study or retreat all excited and trying to minister to their roommate or buddies, only to get the cold shoulder. They wonder why their buddies don't respond more positively, and the answer is that while they were off 'getting into the word' and 'fellow-shipping with their brothers and sisters in Christ' their buddies were cleaning up the mess they left behind, scrambling to rewrite the training schedule that was left unfinished or unapproved, or giving the briefing that the christian skipped out on. Bible studies are important, no less than Church, retreats, mission trips, and all the rest, but if we are going to be good witness for Christ, we have to begin by taking care of our responsibilities to others.

It is easy at the end of the day to look at what you did and give yourself a pat on the back for being better than everyone else. You worked hard and they didn't. But remember a few things.
First, everyone has their own struggles and hardships. When you are picking up slack for someone else, remember that people have been picking up your slack since before you were born. Even aside from what our parents do for us, everyone has bad days, problems, and weaknesses. While today you are covering for someone else, someday you will need someone to cover for you.
Second, its not about you. At the end of the day what matters is if freshmen learned the drill movements, if the shipment got out the door, if the reports got filed, if the job got done. When we learn to be humble and handle our own load, we might have the opportunity to help someone else and achieve things bigger than ourselves.