Personal Vision/Mission Statement

This mission statement is written in the process of  reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven R. Covey.  I encourage anyone who has felt frustrated in their effort to realize their full potential to buy this book and WORK their way through it. The document itself is intended to provide a set of overriding principles by which a person may organize their life.  
God placed me here for His purposes.  
People are more important than things.
God's creations are more important than Man's creations.
When my task is done well others will see what they did and marvel at their own accomplishments.
These principles are focused on relationships. All relationships are part of my relationship with God.  
First: I will seek the best possible outcome for my use of the time God has provided me. Therefore I will learn to say "no" to tasks that reduce my ability to do a greater good.

Private Relationships

Personal savings/investments: The business of America is not "business" (an abstraction), it is service- supplying solutions to people's needs as those people see their own needs. This is the foundation of a real economic engine and true economic growth. The companies in which I invest should provide real service to the people of America.

Family: I will honor these people, who are the source of both my sense of self and my physical heritage.  

Children: Children tend to show us the clearest mirror of our values as we live them in unguarded moments.  I will live before my children as I would have myself amplified to the world. I will educate myself for their sake. I will educate them and not assume others will do that work as I would have it done.  

Wife: My relationship with my wife is the foundation of immediate family life, and the proximate source of my children's security as well as the model for how they should treat others.  My relationship with my wife is my only relationship founded directly in a promise to God.  I will live for her as one who knows he must answer to God for how he kept his promise .  

God: The most fundamental, a but at the same time most difficult relationship to pursue honestly. Our relationship with God is like standing before a window and trying hard to discern what part of the image is our reflection and what is His face. We must be open to the possibility we're too tempted to replace His image with our own. I will try to be humble before God. I will try hard both to seek His face and to hear His voice. Where I know He leads me I will follow .  

Public Relationships

Neighbors: those outside our family closest to us.  I will be open and available.  I will help them see themselves as important.  I will help them to have a voice in the world.  

Church: As God leads me I can't help but be a leader.  In this area, too, I must be humble before His will.  As I wash feet, so to speak, His love is lifted up before others.  Where I see a need in the church I can serve well, whether I get recognition or not, I will seek to serve.

Community: To the Christian there is no truly secular larger relationship, but Christian service admits everyone and serves everyone.  The Christian takes offense only at deeds harmful to God's Creation(s).  Where I can make things better I will work to do so.

Customers: My work is only worthy of a price because it serves the needs of people. I will do my best to do real service to people for a price that is fair.

Global Vision

Nation: The sources of our Government, our founding documents, are based on sacred principles.  I will support those principles by such means as I must within the scope of my faith in God.  

World: The United States is the shining light among nations for the whole world.  Its imperfections, great though they are, are dwarfed by those of our critics in the world.  I seek the improvement of the United States, the enlargement of her influence, and the victory of the vision that made her possible- for the sake of all mankind.  

Future: Within the lifetimes of my children we will either begin to make our way toward creating a future beyond the shores of Earth-and secure a real future for all mankind-or we will fail to do so and secure an Earth destined to become an Easter Island drifting in space.  In this choice the safe way is the way of death.  I will fight for that future for my children's children and yours among the stars and will seek to provide inspiration to those who would drive us toward that necessary and vital day.

Lee Jamison
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