Since leaving home and going to university I’ve found myself frequently worrying about achievement and success. Not in terms of financial and material gain but in relation to my faith, spirituality and discipleship. I’ve often taken a step back, looked at my life and thought ‘What have I actually achieved?’ Examples of people who started churches at a young age or spent years committed to campaigning for a worthy cause often spring to mind. I keep wondering about what I could do in order to make my mark, establish myself as a success.
A few months ago I was reading a chapter of Thomas Merton’s book ‘New Seeds of Contemplation’. He explores in detail this kind of mindset, and says about people that think this way,
‘They can only conceive of one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off from other people and building a barrier of contrast and distinction between themselves and other men…. I have what you have not. I am what you are not. I have taken what you have failed to take…. I spend my life admiring the distance between you and me; at times this even helps me to forget the other men who have what I have not and who have taken what I was too slow to take’.
For Merton, this kind of attitude is unhelpful and ultimately destructive. The alternative he suggest is,
‘I must look for my identity, somehow, not only in God but in other men. I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being’.
I suppose this would mean to view the success of others as my own success, and to view my own success as the success of others. Not easy in reality, when all the messages we receive from our culture point in the opposite direction.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
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24 comments:
I think I know what you mean - the worry of not fulfilling potential or making the most of a short life can be pretty heavy sometimes.
I've got a friend who says, "You may not be able to change the world, but you can change someone's world"; encouraging another to reach their potential is just as valuable and important as hitting your own mark. You probably can't separate the two.
But that's what you said.
I'm not sure i agree with, their sucess is mine and mine theirs. - why is it? i often feel a bit like what you discribed, i do like your quote Dan. I wonder why i want to seem like i've achieved all this stuff - maybe i just want to look good and ppl recognise that i've done someting.
I'm with you Jon.
I defo wanna do good stuff but subconsciously I also want people to notice I'm being good.
sometimes i think that idea of changing the world for one person isn't enough,
gandhi said "be the change you want to see in the world"
I think that's much closer to the right idea,
rather than changing someone elses world change your own, Gandhi was convinced that if everyone in India belived they were free and didn't recognise the legitimacy of British rule then they would have a peaceful revolution and be free immediately.
I don't know what my point is now....sorry
I definitely enjoy it when my friends succeed but maybe that's just because in some way it might reflect well on me! I love to have interesting and varied friends. Also, if England win the world cup then I would definitely take their success to be my own success. And any successes in my own life are due to a number of people - my parents, Daniel, my friends & colleagues. But I know that I'm not living in a competitive environment at the moment...
Luke and I were writing our comments at exactly the same time in completely different places. The joys of the blogging world :)
This very week I had a failure crisis: I am a failed writer, a failed housekeeper, a failed dieter.
Looking at yourself in these terms is inevitably destructive but can be a cycle that it's hard to get out of. A small success (in my eyes being acknowledged by others) simply lifts me up briefly before I crash again.
I know about finding myself truly in God (I'm not sure about others?) and also about it not being about emotions but if I don't find that satisfaction, I am left dissatisfied. With myself, with God, with the world!
But if we were to find our identity in God, would it make us stop searching? Would that be a good thing? Now I've confused myself!
"Look for my identity in other men" - doesn't this mean the way you have influenced, encouraged and supported other people, playing a part in their success? Finding ways to impart success to others instead of yourself?
Am reading a self-help book (don't have the acadmic bookshelf you have, Jon) which says we should depart from the 'Personality Ethic' and instead of working on things we do, work on the things we are.
You can be a successful person, I think, without becoming a millionaire or getting your name in the papers. My mum is one of the most successful people I know.
Great Post Jon
there is nothing wrong with wanting to achieve, wanting to do something lasting and worthwhile, thats a natural human desire.
I think the 'wrong' occurs around that desire; why you want to achieve, how you achieve, what achievement does to you. If you can master those pitfalls then achievement can be a great thing.
Roosevelt used to have a plaque on his desk that said "there is no limit to what you can achieve if you dont mind who takes the credit for it" I think thats great, and in my experience when I have practised this 'generous achievement' which involves elevating others and sharing successes and commercial secrets, it always comes back in my favour.
On the contrary when I try to 'hoard' my success and exert ownership over it, it all seems to slip through my fingers.
I think also we need to be careful not to write off achievement seeking, its one of the greatest and purest natural motivators.
Daniel
Dan Lovell, I like your quote.
Kiera, that's exactly what Merton is talking about. We want to achieve so that other people can recognise that we are different to them, better than them. It becomes about separating ourselves from others not growing together.
Hannah, I think that sums up what I was trying to get at. Success is something to be celebrated as something we have all achieved together.
Liz, I'm confused too.
Anna, I like your ideas about success. From a Christian perspective, our categories of what constitutes success and failure probably need to be rethought. Jesus, was homeless, penniless and executed as a revolutionary, not a millionaire businessman who gave his cigar money to charity.
Daniel, I really like Roosevelt's quote. You're right about success, it would be easy to go to far in the other direction. Who controls and owns are success is very important.
i think what we are ambitious about is another way to be part of God's people. to express a different identity in our culture.
i appreciate this may well change in the future, but at the moment i can't think of anything much worse than being rich enough to have to worry about locking my door every time i go outside. however, like you said jon, i do want to grow in understanding of faith and God. i wish there was an easy way of measuring it... learning alongside others is one of the only ways i can think of. though i do struggle as it really does not tally up with what my culture tells me and i do get panic attacks that i am "only" doing youth work, that i'm "only" doing part time work instead of a having a career, that i'm going off to volunteer in scotland instead of getting a "real" job - despite the fact that i love what i'm doing and in some instances has been the only thing keeping me going. it's a funny world.
I think it all comes down to motivation. Daniel's Roosevelt quote captures the questions of our motivation pretty succinctly. What do we want to achieve? Why do we want to achieve? We perhaps need to be more self-aware: what is the end result we are looking for?
I remmember feeling mildly irritated a few years back when the fair trade bandwagon started rolling. People like Chris Martin became figureheads. It was quite cool to be part of this subversive sub-culture and suddenly it was all over OK and HELLO magazines!
I had enjoyed wearing the T-Shirt and making my token contributions of buying fair trade teabags, bananas and chocolate more than wanting to see positive, lasting change in the way global trade was handled.
Like Daniel I don't think achievement is a bad thing per se but we need to acknowledge that achievement and recognition are separate entities.
I can really relate to what you are getting at Jon and I think we've all been there, are there and will return there!
I believe our desire to succeed is positive and I'm not actually sure the motivation to set ourselves apart as greater achievers is ultimately destructive. I think the problem comes when we are focused on the worng type of success. Jesus significantly set his 'targets of success' apart from that of the culture and society he was in. Jesus flipped it upside down and showed that what society deemed as failure was actually success. Do you think Jesus' thought process was 'how can I do better than them?'?! I think he might have!
I'm not explaining myself so clearly so I'll stop babbling but I hope I make some kind of loose sense here!
that's interesting Tim. Is that asking whether compition is bad - when we want to achieve something and do better than those around us. To be the best at it - is that bad?
I guess thats kinda my thought process Kiera. In so many senses we're better off for competition. Personally I'm very competitive so I could be biased but if I'm pushed to achieve more and be more then surely thats good even if the motivation isn't the purist?
Tim, I disagree. Any motivation that seeks to set ourselves apart as greater achievers seems to run counter to the ethos of the gospel as I understand it. I think that is what Merton is getting at.
Rather than setting himself up as a 'greater achiever' Jesus lived the life of a servant.
Competition and achievement make plenty of sense from the perspective of a capitalist darwinian society. But is that the perspective that we should have? I think motivation has a lot more significance than you give it credit. Jesus was very concerned with what went on 'inside' us, this was one of his major problems with the Pharisees wasn't it?
Craig Borlase says something about success and individualism in this article.
'Pope John Paul II got it right when he commented that “faith leads us beyond ourselves.”'
I half agree with you Tim and half disagree. I think the important demarcation to realise is between the desire to achieve and to be the achiever.
There is nothing wrong with the desire to achieve, I believe it is an integral part of how we are wired. The difficulties and "sin" comes with not wanting to achieve, buit rather when we become wrapped up in being the achiever and invest our identity in that. It is then that we begin to display the "sin" of jealousy, pride, anger, narcissism etc.
Jesus was breathtakingly humble, but also in the gospel accounts we see an iron resolve to achieve legacy, justice and community.
While he did defer honour and recognition onto women, God the father, John the Baptist, gentiles and many more, he had an uncompromising attitude to achieving goals, and at times got angry with those helping him! (garden of gethsemane)
Even on the cross, he was steadfast in 'achieving' his crucifixion, not stepping off as he was tempted to.
The model I see in Jesus with regard to achievement, is one of the most uncompromising, driven individuals in history, but with no illusory or wrong concepts of being 'the achiever'
Listen Jon! Surely you'll agree that Jesus was one of the greatest servants our world has seen and that is why I was talking about the importantance of what our goal is. Jesus was aiming to be the best and to out do the other religious leaders around him but he set his targets in the right place - giving, humbleness etc. Surely you can agree that Jesus was out to prove a point by being distinctly different?
I like Daniels distinction between being focused on achieveing and not caught up in 'being' and achiever (creating our identity).
Is compition always about setting ourselves apart and above - or could we see it as a tool for shapening oneanother. Maybe compition is the wrong word.
I agree that what Merton says in the firwst paragraph is a negative desire, but I dont' know if i think it's is bad to want ambition, to want to be good at something, even the best perhaps - not to make yourself better than anyone else but to believe in something so passionaltely you want to do it the best. - that soudns like the same thing but in my head it's different.
I think of it like - and organisation, take a relief charity want to be the best in the world, provide the best care that is physically possible - that's good.
Maybe is about being the best, rather than being better than others.
I'm think aloud now, i'll stop,
Tim, I just don't whether i think that Jesus was trying to 'out do' the other religious leaders and be a better version of them.
Daniel, I agree (I think).
Kiera, to take the aid organisation example a little further, wouldn't the emphasis more likely be wanting aid to be provided in the best way possible. So whether your aid organisation or another makes that provision doesn't matter. We aren't in it to be better than all the others, we are in it so that aid provision as a whole gets better. As we share ideas with each other, they may become more successful for a time, but our emphasis wouldn't be on us being the best. I think that is what Merton is getting at, we can see the success of others as our success.
Just give up Jon. I'm right and you're wrong!
I agree, I may not have been disagreeing with Merton, but was suggesting that the compition with others may push us to do better at our 'end goal' whatever that is. Cud be seen as eachothers sucess i guess.
- A sharpening of eachother.
What about love?
You said you wanted to grow in faith, in the knowledge of God and to make your life count for something, but you're unsure sometimes of your motives. A lot of what has been said seems to be questionning drivenness; when is it a good thing, when is it destructive, can it be wholesome...
Tim O, you said about Jesus wanting to out-do other religious leaders.
I think He was the most driven man who ever lived, but driven by love. When you love, achievement is altogether different. I think that for Jesus, faithfulness was His great success because He loved the Father. A few times in the gospels, He says "I have accomplished all that the Father has given me to do," or words to that effect. Any more on top would have been irrelevant.
What I mean is, I think you can be powerfully driven without ever thinking about success. I used to work for a guy who had 3 sons, all of whom are severely disabled and can't live beyond a certain age. 2 of them have died now, and the other hasn't got long to live. In one sense you could say their lives won't go anywhere, but he is such a committed parent. He has put so much into raising those 3 boys, but I think the concept of success is not much use to him. He doesn't need it to be a great dad, to keep some vision of great parenthood alive and help him keep re-doubling his efforts.
I think its touching on a profound mystery, but when you realise that what counts before God is your relationships, success can pretty much be forgotten about, while your life still counts for the same high and holy cause that Jesus gave His up for
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