Don't know what it means?
I'm aim to please. Courtesy of Merriam-Webster:
Supererogation: the act of performing more than is required by duty, obligation, or need.
It was one of the principles discussed at my ethics conference last week. And despite my state of mind upon entering said conference, I was able to digest this part of it enough to blog about it a week later. (On whole, the conference was actually really good.)
How often do you do more than is required?
Me? Not enough.
OH, we could make the argument that just by virtue of being a social worker we're doing more than required. And boy is it ever temping. Think of our jobs! The people with whom we work! The situations we see day in and day out! The lousy pay!
But I am not inclined to make such an argument. The fact of the matter is all professions serve a purpose to this society. And no matter how unsophisticated a job may appear to others, there is dignity in working. Some jobs, I suppose, offer that cachet of being more noble or heroic than others. I would certainly say social workers fall into this category, along with teachers, preachers, priests, monks, deacons (or any person who has devoted their lives to their religious calling), police, day car providers, nurses, and the like.
Take law enforcement, for example. I couldn't be a cop if someone held a gun to my head, and I don't have much trust for the profession as a whole. But I certainly recognize the need for them. And I absolutely appreciate that every time they work, they are seeing humanity at its worst and potentially putting their own lives on the line. Plus, when I see blog entries like the one here (go to: April 2, 2008 titled "Alienated." He doesn't have a separate page for each entry. The comments are especially telling) I don't think they're all bad.
But does this mean cops are doing more than required of them just by virtue of their jobs? Of course not. They chose the job because they had a calling to become police officers. I discussed this before, but none of us are social workers because we're wholly altruistic creatures with nothing but high mindedness and light guiding our way. No, we're all here because we get something out of it. So what do you do above and beyond being a social worker (or whatever it is that you do for a living)? What do you do above and beyond what life calls you to do?
Because despite what we would like to believe, we don't actually live in little cocoons that encompass only ourselves, our families and our friends. The world is much bigger than our bills, our work schedules, our parent-teacher conferences, and our dinner-and-a-show Friday nights.
I'll send you off this weekend with a paraphrase of the wisdom imparted to me last week:
If you want others around you to be happy, exercise compassion. If you want to be happy, exercise compassion. ->
Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/tXCM/~3/397103329/supererogation.html
Posted
19 Sep 2008 11:00 AM
by
Trench Warfare
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