At the keynote address of the International Chrstian Brotherhood's Blueprint of Manhood event, Pastor A.R. Bernard pointed us to the path of excellence: living according to design.

It means we need to look at the blueprints.

It also means we need to look in the mirror.

Seeing the world clearly begins by seeing myself clearly.

And that notion gives me pause.

First, because I can look all around me, in family and community, in business and politics, in church and in culture, and see leaders who harm their followers because they have no idea who they are.

They don’t see their addictive tendencies or abusive practices.

They don’t see their biases or weaknesses.

And while I’m busy pointing fingers, I can just as easily see these dangers in myself.

I have my own addictive tendencies.

I can mistreat people with the best of intentions.

I have my own blind spots and can overestimate my capabilities.

And knowing that should constantly call me back to the blueprints.

Webster’s Dictionary defines a blueprint as (literally) a photographic print used for copying maps, mechanical drawings, and architects' plans, or (figuratively), a detailed plan or program of action that serves as a model for creating something.

This is where fear sabotages potential.

If I have access to my ideal program of action, and refuse to consult it, because I don’t want to be told what to do, or refuse to look in the mirror, because I don’t want to see how much work I need, I’ll never be the person I’m supposed to be and will never get where I’m supposed to go.

My unaddressed, unseen flaws will only worsen over time.

How many diseases come from daily neglect?

How many abandoned dreams result from not putting in the work?

In how many places in our lives can we look back and see that if we had just started something we thought we were too old to begin, by now, we would have been doing it for 10, 20, or 30 years? And maybe, would have accomplished something?

And since I’m not living on a desert island, my refusal to examine myself and adapt means that my flaws will affect everyone around me.

How often do new leaders have to begin by repairing damage done by their predecessors? In politics this is, for some, quite nearly a business plan. You create problems on the way out so that your successor is forced to waste time rebuilding, and not implement their own plans you didn’t like anyway. In life, however, many of us do the same thing through sheer neglect. In passing, we leave our loved ones unable to grieve properly, or live freely, because they have to clean up our messes before they can do anything.

How many organizations falter because of leaders who won’t even look at their own history, much less the history of leaders who went before them.

Innovation is powerful. New discoveries can change the world. But if ego is driving us to reinvent the wheel, or never start pushing it, we will waste our lives thinking about what we could do and worrying that someone else will steal our uniqueness if we reveal it too soon.

Not possible.

I learned long ago that I could not be anyone else. You can copy your heroes all you want, but you will never be a better them than they are. You can only be the best you. Solomon argued that “all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Esslesiastes 4:4)

A life built on envy will lead to discontentment.

A life built on anger will lead to alienation.

A life built on disappointment will lead to expertise in imagined limitations.

A life built on fear will lead to small moves.

A life built on learned helplessness, will lead to passivity

A life built, however, on a blueprint will lead us to become the people we were designed to be and do the things we were made to do.

And maybe some things we’ve never imagined.

(Photo Credit: Mikhail Nilov)

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