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Today's
Meditation:
I've been
lucky never to have fallen into this trap. I've done
a lot of jobs that have paid rather poorly, but I've
always been able to focus on what I'm contributing and how
I'm helping others rather than on the amount of money that
I've been paid for doing so. Of course, when one's a
teacher, one is rarely paid well and one is serving rather
constantly, so we almost never see success as a large
paycheck, but in what our students learn and how they grow
as people.
But
what Martin says seems to be quite accurate in our world
of today, especially in Western cultures. Sometimes
it seems as if we're in a huge game on one-upmanship,
always trying to get that bigger paycheck by getting that
promotion, always buying the more expensive car because we
want to be seen as successful by our peers and
colleagues. It's a very materialistic and
superficial way of judging something like success, though,
that takes into account nothing of one's emotional or
spiritual or intellectual health.
When
we define success for ourselves and we do all that we can
to meet those expectations, then we can truly call
ourselves successful. And defining it for ourselves
is very important because the world in which we live isn't
going to offer us definitions that work on a personal
level. Perhaps the most important element of success
for me is to make my spouse and children happy, and if I'm
able to do that, I help to contribute more peace and
harmony to my own little corner of the world, and that's a
very inspiring vision of success.
If
you have a run with 3,000 people in it, is only the person
who comes in first place successful? Absolutely
not-- everyone who finishes is successful. The
winner's trophy is an example of a material reward, but
everyone else who finishes has the intrinsic reward of
having accomplished something very special. Material
wealth is simply an extrinsic sign of having earned a lot
of money, not of being a successful human being who lives
with love and compassion.
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