Finders Keepers
What would you do if you found $1 million on the street?
Joey Coyle, an unemployed meth addict from South Philly, got a chance to answer that question in the early 1980's after he found $1.2 million that fell out of a Purolator armored truck. Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, tells Joey's amazing story in Finders Keepers.
What caught my attention was Bowden's question toward the end of the book.
"Who among us, no matter how virtuous our intentions, could withstand a truly spectacular unsolicited temptation?" In other words, what would you do? Would you have responded differently?
It is easy to say that we would return incorrect change to the clerk at Starbucks or return someone's wallet with $5 inside. But what about a truly spectacular temptation? A little extra change or a few dollars won't transform our lives, but how would we respond to a temptation that would turn our world upside-down? That is more difficult.
Similarly, few of us would go out of our way to shoplift, mug someone or rob a bank. It is easy to say no to those activities. However, what would we do if an unsolicited temptation presented itself? What if it just showed up at our door? That is a tough question.
It is probably impossible to answer these questions abstractly. We don't know what we would do until we are presented with the opportunity.
However, I do have a suggestion. I think that we respond to spectacular once-in-a-lifetime temptation the same way that we do with the more mundane everyday kind. I think we respond to big temptations the same way we respond to small ones. I think we would follow the same path that we'd already established.
This is very important. Little temptations might seem insignificant, but they are not. Our response to little temptations sets the foundation for our response to larger temptations. In other words, there is no such thing as a little temptation, since it is an opportunity to establish our character and to determine our integrity. What you have done in the past and what you do in the present determines what you will do in the future.
As Bowden explains, at the time of the story, most people seemed to think that they would keep the money, just like Joey did. Few people felt that he had done anything wrong. "The crime fell into a morally gray area, perhaps into that small space reserved for the larceny in everyone's soul." This is probably true and shows Bowden's understanding of human nature. However, great leaders recognize that they can't be like "most people," at least not in this respect. Effective leadership requires that we avoid reserving even a "small space" for larceny in our soul.
