Death of a Salesman

JP and I recently looked at houses while considering a purchase. I don’t know if you have ever had the pleasure of this experience but let’s just say we are extending our apartment lease for another year.   I didn’t quite understand how it works when you visit a house that is still occupied.  What do you say to the people about their home as you meander from room to room critiquing every intricate detail of their most prized possession? Do you fake your approval, or pretend as you cringe at leopard print wall paper that they have a wonderful eye for interior decoration? I think I was coming to a bit of an anxiety crisis when faced with that scenario, I don’t think I could pull it off.  As I wondered aloud these thoughts on our way to see a condo, JP informed me that the people don’t stay, that would be awkward.  Precisely what I was thinking!  Then I got a sense that we have a sort of responsibility to owe it to the home owner to tell them, after the fact, if we liked their house or not.  To this thought JP casually replied “you must have been a horrible salesman.” 

I was in sales once.  I liked it at first.  The fast paced atmosphere, the ever changing product knowledge and the sense of pride you got when performing better than your peers.  This was at a whole different point in my life.  My answer to JP’s quip was that I was actually pretty good at it because I had low morals during that juncture of life.  I believe it’s hard to be an honest loving person in sales.  So much of your success, income and status come strictly based off of your ability to convince another good human being to purchase something above their means, so you can gain more social status and income, then in turn purchase something above your means.  Ask any honest or conniving salesman if at any point they have been presented with a sales scenario where they know the right thing to do, but can gain so much more for themselves if they think of self first, and they will absolutely agree it happens in almost every encounter.  That is why I feel commission jobs should be eradicated.  Regardless of the fact that my only experience with this income structure forced me back into my mother’s house at twenty five is of no consequence what so ever.  Commission income structure focuses on the heart of multiple evils; money, self, and pride. 

Let’s break down your typical sales environment.  Companies have weeks on end of training all geared towards bringing them more gain.  All the while teaching you the art of sales; they are in turn selling you on joining them in this cycle of deception while deceiving you with the very lesson being taught.  So what do you do?  You join them of course.  Because after all, haven’t we been taught for so long to look out for number one?  That’s exactly what they want you to think you are doing but in actuality you are helping them look out for the company.  On top of it all, it brings this false sense of relation and teamwork, when in reality it’s a vicious cycle of greed and corruption that when undermined, will cut you off without a second look back.  I can relate to that.  When I worked at the largest major computer corporation in the world selling computers to small businesses, I was very good at it.  I was on board with their goal of personal gain for me and I was completely fooled by that sense of feeling needed and valued.  I climbed to the top of the sales charts by month three.  I thought I had worth with the company, I felt I was an asset.  In month four I made a very honest mistake and was terminated.  No second chance, no remorse, no look at the value I brought to the company, and no evaluation of performance before making a decision.  I was nothing to them, and it was evident.  Undoubtedly, they probably invested in another young twenty something.  Won that person over with the same deception scheme they call training and threw them to the wolves to fight and survive.  It will probably end with the person either becoming fed up with the back stabbing environment or when they offend the cycle of corruption and turn to honesty. 

Don Miller says in Searching for God Knows What, that there really is no defined morality.  He argues that our morals come from our relationship with God.  Whether you believe in God or not, we all intrinsically have knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, otherwise we would not have a conscience.    Something inside of us speaks to our inner most telling us what we know is the better thing to do, yet more often than not we purposefully stray from that voice.  Another something inside of us of equal and opposite force calls us to quietly pretend the other voice is no longer calling or has inexplicably been muted.  We seek self gain first and foremost, leaving those humans and inner voices alike, behind to choke on our proverbial dust of self gratification.  This is where Don Miller claims that only through knowing and loving God can we truly change and learn how to do the selfless thing, and thus follow the good voice.  His claim is that if we invest in a relationship with understanding God more, how much He loves us, and then in turn allow His love to grow inside of us as we choose to follow Him, our lives will become more moral.  Through the transformation of God’s love, our lives will begin to run the course of holiness along the path of God’s perfection.

This makes sense to me.  At the time I was in sales, when I so gleefully defended my success due to “low morals”, I had virtually no relationship with God.  I did not think about how much He loved me, nor did I return the love to others, let alone allow it to change my life.  I was seeking self on so many different levels inside and outside of career.  My surroundings bred selfishness, so I adjusted to mesh in.  Think of Don Miller’s claim in the paradigm of marriage.  You don’t cheat on your spouse because it’s wrong (at least I certainly hope you have deeper motives not to), it’s because you love them.  Their love for you has caused you to love them and do right by them.  You would hate to devastate them in that manner; you would be repulsed to see them crushed under the severity of your selfishness.  That is how our morality should be aligned; through the transforming love from God and our love towards Him and His sacrifice for us His creation.  I am not so naïve to miss where my example, marriage, fails given our current deteriorating state of marriage and divorce rates.  But the bottom line is, scripture calls our faith, following, and love relationship to God a marriage and it is a wonderful illustration for us today to lean on.   It paints a clear analogous picture, consequently serving its purpose.

Now I am completely aware that there are persons out there who are just inherently good people.  When I meet those that are so willing to help the less fortunate, give some allowance of their possessions, or volunteer their time, I’m touched.  But at the same time I’m also saddened.  What is their primary motivation to do these, in essence, random acts of kindness?  Do they do it to feel better about themselves?  Is it to remind themselves that their situation is not so bad or could even be worse? Perhaps it is to have the appearance of doing it out of this God driven love mentioned above.  Or maybe they look to receive some level of recognition and confirmation about themselves.  I don’t really know, but it does seem to be some kind of self medication of sorts in a roundabout way.  Not that I’m claiming it’s wrong or bad, I guess it makes me sad because I see so much potential for their service to be so much more.  But can you blame them?  This is exactly how God created us, to find value in Him, but since that relationship was broken, we then have since turned to each other for that validation. (I’m not blaming God here, just merely stating I can understand how people miss the mark)  It is one thing to be completely defiant in the face of God, know it, and continue to act on it.  I get that because I’ve done it.  But to have no clue, and continually convince yourselves that your good works makes you completely okay and better than the defiant, is an equally scary slope to slide down.  It’s exactly where the evil forces of this world want you to be.  In comparison to one another, rather than in comparison to where God wants you to be. 

This is why I believe in the story of the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve were created to follow God and God alone.  They were not created to follow each other; their sense of being was rooted in God, an all loving and flawless Being.  Furthermore, they found their identity and self worth in God.  They walked in unison in God’s presence having a complete relationship with Him.  When I ponder humanity now, the truth of the Garden makes sense to me.  If something destroyed that, i.e. Sin, and separated creation from this perfect Being, we are left with only imperfection to draw from.  It’s no wonder we feel lonely, worthless, heartbroken, jealous, slanderous, the list goes on.  Naturally, if you obtain your affirmation of self from a broken being you’re inevitably going to feel broken yourself. 

This all brings me to the reason I’m writing today.  Forgive me for taking the shortcut to get us here but now we are ready.  The other day I was reading Second Corinthians chapter 5 in verses 16-20.  In them, Paul speaks about how we now are new creations in Christ.  That is, the old self seeking amoral broken characters have been done away with.  He explains that through Christ, we have been reconciled to God and now are His ambassadors who He has entrusted with this message of reconciliation.  (Forgive me for paraphrasing for space purposes. I’ve got to cater to space at some point don’t I?)  Essentially God is setting up a system where we, the once unloving creation are His representatives, a kind of holy salesman if you will.  God uses us, the broken, to restore the broken via our transformation found in Christ’ perfect reconciliation. I’m not saying people become perfect, what I’m saying is God’s perfection can be seen in our actions and proper identity can be given to creation through a relationship with Him.   

So, in responding to JP’s comical assessment, “you must have been a horrible salesman” the answer would be absolutely yes.  I do a horrible job of letting God’s love transform me into the person He wants me to be.  I do a horrible job of representing His message of reconciliation.  And that’s just it, when you are an ambassador, a representative; you are not merely a salesman.  It goes so much further with God.  The product becomes a part of you.  God moves in power to make you more like Him, i.e. His morality. Thus you are moved to make more than a sales pitch based upon selfish gain and propaganda.  It drives you to live it out.  Nowhere in computer sales did I feel so attached to the item in which I let it move me to become more like it.  Let’s face it, DOS is pretty bland.  

I’ve recently gotten back into the Gospels after spending time elsewhere.   I truly want to know what it is like to love another human like Jesus did.  Honestly, I’ve never really tried nor asked Him to provide that for me, and those who know me can attest to that by my behavior.  Life has always been more of a go with the flow than step out on a limb.  My faith has always been rooted in what Jesus did for me, not what His actions exemplified to me.  I’m the guy asking what his country can do for him, only my country is God.  It’s time to be an ambassador and put a death to the salesman.   Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

 

Miller

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