Bad accounting practices

 My mother, who loved the scriptures, taught a wayward boy that he must always stand ready to give an account. She loved to quote a scripture that says: Always be ready to give an account for the hope that’s within you.

You’re supposed to be able to give that account, at the drop of a hat, to everyone that asks. You’re supposed to be able to do it in a gentle, respectful manner, leaving the impatience and exasperation that leads to defensiveness and sarcasm behind.

I remember her lesson on responsibility because she had to grind it in, as they say in the teaching trade. I was at the Tom Sawyer stage. I was trying to learn new and exciting ways to avoid having to give an account of my behavior.

It took a while for the boy to grow up, to realize that being able to give an account of my own conduct was the beginning of being my own person, rather than a child under my mother’s firm hand.

It took me much longer to see that in life, as in business, there are different methods of accounting, some more useful than others.

Consider people who divide life into good moments (vacation) and bad moments (work). That accounting scheme suggests life is all about finding less work, more play. I’ve heard lectures on “maximizing quality time.”

A better way of accounting might be to pay attention and behave well regardless of the circumstances, whether it’s time spent in work or play, in pain or pleasure.

That peculiar sense of accounting for one’s life might be the best description I could give of what thoughtful people mean when they say they’re religious.

• Source: The verse is 1 Peter 3:15.