Threat of success

Success is a danger to our souls.

What is success? Who defines it? When do you know you have it?

I’ll confess to you what success means to me: Money, popularity, and power.

How much money, popularity, and power?

I’ll confess to you: More. Always more.

What will I do to get more money, popularity, and power?

How much will it cost? In energy? Relationships? Time?

What if I don’t have any clue about how to get more money, popularity, and power? Then I can just spend what money and time I have fantasizing about it. I can plan constantly. I can talk big. On a little screen, I can spend hours watching people with money, popularity, and power.

What makes money, popularity, and power our gold standard for success? The perception that those things will make us independent, loved, safe, and true to ourselves and what we value.

When you see the words in black and white like this, do they look like wisdom to you? No. They are false. Ridiculous.

And yet…

How much of what you and I do today will be in service to money, popularity, and power?

How much will the discord between what we need and what we think we need damage us and damage the people around us? How much will it sap the lives out of our souls? How much will it blind and deafen us to the art and music of life? How much will it end up costing us in the end?

When I look back at where I’ve gone wrong, it has always been when I let money, popularity, or power set the course for my life. Those decisions were always born of fear and worry. Fear of not having enough. Worry about running out. What if I don’t have money, popularity, or power and I’m alone, unloved, and useless?

If the bad news is that we should be afraid of not having enough money, popularity, and power, the good news is that those things are not necessary for life to be abundant and love to overflow.

My dad having cancer and my son starting preschool this month are teaching me that. What matters most to me is being there for them, enjoying them, sharing “daily bread” with them. I may never be influential, popular, or rich in the world. What does it matter? The world will forget me in an instant when I’m dead or down. But I matter to my dad and my son. I matter to my mom and my wife. I matter to my close friends and relatives. And they all matter to me. Loving them and sharing life with them is free, safe, and true.

A life that matters. Love. Free, safe, and true.

The very things we think we need money, popularity, and power to acquire.

The Gospel is that life and love are free.

Just look around you today. You already have what you need.

Give thanks. Live. Love. And success will be assured.

Grace and peace.