Focus on Quota only? ...

Wednesday, September 22, 2010. On a daily basis we look into quotas, we check download numbers. For newspapers it is crucial to know how many copies are sold. For social websites the number of visitors is an important criterion.

Quota, publicity, influence is our religion …

How many people watched the latest talk-show last night? Between the TV channels it is a tough competition to attract the largest crowd. The same is true about many other things. When you write a book, how many copies did you sell? When you write a paper in science, how many citations did you get?

Most of our motivation is centered around numbers. All these numbers in fact try to measure something else: it is about influence. We believe that importance is linked to the number of people we influence. Leadership and rankings go into the same direction. Our rankings mirror our preferences and our thinking about what is important.

In fact, we have to realize that we act as if we had a particular religion: the religion of rankings, of influence, of power. It sometimes seems that the whole society on it various levels is dancing around this particular idol! Even Christian societies or even Christian organizations are often tempted to follow this false God of our time …

Alternatives! …

There are alternatives to the dance around the golden calf of numbers, influence, power. We are not forced to center our life around quotas, around rankings, around selling numbers or citation lists.

Jesus shows a different attitude. He was able to attract large crowds. But he was also able to let the crowd go, after he started to tell them the more difficult bits of his message. He put the wonderful creator and his presence into the center of his life and his teaching, not download numbers or the number of people entering his “social network”.

It will be quite difficult to follow Jesus in these things. We are immersed in different attitudes, we grow up with them, we listen to them from morning to evening in our news. How can you focus on the really important things, on appreciation, love, truth, solidarity and sustainability, when a huge crowd basically pushes everyone to follow different values.

It may not be easy, but it is important and necessary to find back to the true God and to true life … It is important to let things go which keep us in a vicious circle! ... more texts