A stoic Reflection on Standards, Responsibility and the Integrity of Systems. 

The hidden Cost of “Kindness”

We live in an age where protecting feelings is often valued more than protecting the truth.
Leaders are told to "be supportive" - a euphemism that too often means: avoid discomfort at all costs.

But discomfort is not the enemy, discomfort is the messenger.
It arrives without politeness, without warning to deliver a simple truth: something in your life is out of alignment. Reality is colliding with your illusions. 

Many never hear it. Not because the message is absent, but because they live in an imaginary world of their own making. A world where the story is always flattering, where every problem has an external cause, and where self-reflection is replaced by self-justification. 
They mistake comfort for safety, and absence of challenge for proof that they are right. 

This is the tragedy of self-deception, to guard the illusion as if it where life itself. To reject anything that threatens the fantasy, even when it is the truth knocking at the door. 

Most people kill the messenger. The wise will read the letter. 

When I refuse to rescue mediocrity, it is not because I lack compassion. 
It is because the moment we pretend reality is negotiable, we begin to dismantle the very structures that make excellence possible. 

The debt is always collected, paid in the erosion of standards, the decay of discipline, and in the quiet shrinking of those who might have grown. 

The Stoic Position

Marcus Aurelius wrote: 
" If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it."

To rescue mediocrity is to say something untrue:
That this level of performance is acceptable.
That there are no consequences for repeated failure.
That the standards we set are flexible depending on who is in front of us.

Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, built his school not to create agreeable men, but to forge resilient ones. Men who could meet reality without flinching. 

And rescuing mediocrity does the opposite:
It shields people from the reality they must face to grow. 

Systems build on sand

I work in operations, I studied Industrial Engineering. Along the way, I learned to see the world as systems. 

A production line does not care about your intentions. 
A delayed shipment is not softened by your excuses. 
Reality is indifferent. 

When you rescue mediocrity in a system, you introduce silent cracks into its foundation.

In engineering, a hidden crack will always reveal itself — in time, under stress, without warning. The same is true of lowered standards in people.

One weak standard tolerated here...
One exception justified there...
And soon the whole structure shifts from order to entropy. 

The same is true in leadership.
Culture lives in what you tolerate when no one’s watching.

The moral Dimension

There is also an ethical layer.
To allow someone to remain in mediocrity is to rob them of their potential. 

It is to say: 
I believe you are incapable of more.

True compassion is not shielding someone from friction. It is guiding them through it.
It is the difficult conversation.
It is the decision that may make you unpopular today, but respected ten years from now.

Why this is not for everyone

This approach does not fit every context. In some environments, stability and safety are more urgent than standards. A person in crisis may need shelter before challenge. Compassion has a time and place. But when the house is on fire, you don’t hand out pillows — you get people moving.

In my world - factories, systems, and the raising of children - weak standards are a luxury we cannot afford. 

Life will test you whether you are ready or not. Better to prepare people in controlled friction than to let the world break them without warning. 

The long view

The Stoics teach us to see beyond the immediate moment. Today's rescue may feel good. But what is the second-order consequence? What will this pattern produce in a year? in five years? 

The answer is always the same: Tolerance for mediocrity grows into dependence on it. 

My Choice

I choose to hold the line. 
Not because I enjoy conflict. 
Not because I lack empathy. 

I do it because systems collapse in absence of standards. 
Because individuals wither without challenge.
Because truth without courage is useless. 

I will not rescue mediocrity.
Not in my team, my children and Not in myself. 

Because every lowered standard writes a silent permission slip for decline.
Because the comfort of the moment is never worth the decay of the future.
Because we do not rise to the level of our hopes - we fall to the level of what we tolerate.

And in my world, tolerance has a hard floor: excellence.

– Iwan