Three Pieces of Paper on My Desk

Many years ago the surface of my desk was a cluttered mess.  I decided to clean it up and, with help, in a day or two my desktop was immaculate.  Perhaps I was motivated to take action because my assistant discovered a rather large check buried under the disorder. I needed the cash for my brand-new business to survive and it would have been helpful to have deposited the check when it was received four months earlier.

My desk remained neat for nine months.  Every single day before I left my office I filed or otherwise dealt with every single piece of paper.  But I still remember the day when, as I stood up to leave, there were three pieces of paper on my desk.

“Alan,” I said to myself, “if you don’t take away those three pieces of paper, it’s over.  Your desk is going to be a mess again.”

The nice part of talking to yourself is that you control both sides of the conversation.  “You’re right,” I muttered in my mind.

“So take them off your desk.  It’s only three pieces of paper.”

A second advantage of arguing with yourself is that you always win.  Unfortunately, you also always lose.  The papers remained, and were joined by hordes of companions over the next few weeks.

As I have previously written, a good relationship can only be built upon a foundation of trust. Lies are like those little pieces of paper accumulating on my desk, first one and then another. If I deceive you once how can you ever trust me?  If you work for me and I pay you two weeks late one time, how can you possibly trust me to pay you reliably in the future? If you lie to your partner about why you were two hours late arriving home, how can he or she not be concerned every day in the future that you might be late again and not tell the truth about the reason.

It’s a slippery slope.

I have met every payroll on time for more than forty-five years.  I always tell my wife the truth about where I am and who I’m with.

And the top of my desk is still a mess.  I wonder how many checks are buried there.

Alan