Success or Failure?

I used to think I knew what was a suc­cess and what was a fail­ure, but any­more I am not sure. As I get a lit­tle older and wiser, I see the lines between the two fad­ing. Ego suc­cesses are ulti­mately short-lived. Career is a myth. Health inevitably fails no mat­ter how many times you go to the weight room.

Spir­i­tu­al­ity works by dif­fer­ent rules and prin­ci­ples. Paul sum­ma­rized it by say­ing, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” It works by oppo­sites. What we admire most, in the end, proves to be worth­less. Things we ignore or even dis­dain some­how step in to res­cue us from our own foolishness.

Many years ago, I took my degrees off the wall and put them in a file some­where. I had awak­ened to real­ize that no one can prove self-worth. I stopped play­ing pol­i­tics — at all lev­els. We are not saved by our shrewd social maneu­vers. Over­all, I quit tak­ing myself so seri­ously. Life is about some­thing so much greater than lit­tle old me.

I am not really sure of what to be proud of in my life. Along the way it all reverses itself. I do not know how much money is in my bank account, and I don’t really care. Money has lit­tle if any­thing to do with human hap­pi­ness or success.

Suc­cess and fail­ure are mea­sures made through our own eyes. Each decade the stan­dards change. Every so often you give away the things you once prized. “Hav­ing” caves into “being.” We are not defined by what hap­pens to us in life, but we are des­tined by the way we inter­pret it. “Why” caves into “how.”

Is it suc­cess or fail­ure? It all depends on how you are led to see it.