The 80/20 principle

                I remember reading a book on Leadership and have come to know about Vilfredo Pareto's principle or "Pareto principle."  This principle is also called the “80/20 principle.”  The key point to this principle is that you can achieve 80% of your results with 20% effort.

                I have applied this principle to married life.  In other words, I have applied the 80/20 principle to the married couple who has intention to fill each other’s deficiencies.  For example, I think the married life is that the husband to fill the 20% of his wife’s deficiencies and the wife does the same to her husband.  If the couple see each other’s deficiencies only in negative way and complains about them, then the couple will eventually be forced to clash and have conflicts.  But the wise couple will be able to grow into a perfect couple in the Lord as long as they live a life in complementing and filling each other’s deficiencies with endurance and patience by taking their deficiencies as an opportunity of love each other.

                When I apply this 80/20 principle to the marital life, I think that the wise couple is devoted not only seeing each other’s 20%  strengthens instead of 80% weaknesses but also build that 20% up to reach 80%.  Therefore, the couple not only sees the 80% strengthens of his/her spouse but also encourage each other as they accept each other’s 20% weaknesses and even love his/her spouse’s 20% weaknesses. Of course, I think the marriage life is pursuing 100% strengthens. But I think that the couple also needs 20% weaknesses for their married life in this world.  The reason is because the marriage life is for the couple to live by filling and complementing each other's shortcomings.

                When I apply this principle to our married life over 10 years, two thoughts come to my mind.

                First of all, I thought about how devoted I (and my wife) have been in raising my spouse’s 20% strengthens to reach 80% and how much have I been bearing fruits.  I ask myself whether I and my wife are pulling the best points out of each other, cultivating them, developing them, and building them up.

                Second, I thought about how much am I (and my wife) putting efforts in covering up my spouse’s 80% weaknesses with her 20% strengthens and how much have I tried to fulfill her 80% weaknesses.  Instead of looking at her 80% weaknesses with complaining attitude, I ask myself how much I try to understand her weaknesses, cover them up in love and fill them up.

There is no perfect couple.  There is just the couple who pursue a perfect marital relationship in the Lord.  That perfection is possible only in the Lord.  I think the marriage life is to accept and fill each other’s shortcomings with God’s love as them themselves are filled with His love and grace that fills their shortcomings.  I want to pursue such marital life by the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.