What Does Success Look Like to You
May 14, 2019
Our culture has a bias for more. The messages we continually receive shout “MORE.” We are told we deserve more and better and we should want more, bigger, better, nicer, and greater: nicer cars, bigger houses, more adventurous vacations, and loads of exciting toys. Why? Because it’s supposed to be the recipe for being happier and more fulfilled.
You don’t have to follow that path too long before you figure out that it’s completely an illusion, and actually very poor advice. It puts you on an endless pursuit of a dangling prize that always eludes you; just out of reach. Buying and consuming can make us richer but not more satisfied.
The consistent messages are that success is a place we get to and what we have when we get there. But the measurements for more, bigger, and better keep changing. That version of success never has a stopping place. Someone always has more, does more, has nicer, does better. We still aren’t good enough.
The ones who discover authentic success discover there’s an ingredient not often mentioned: significance. Stuff doesn’t matter after all, no matter how much you are able to pile up. We never get interior success when all we have is exterior stuff to show for our efforts. We need to find out how to do things that matter. How to BE, more than DO and chase. How to live for others more than for ourselves and our stuff.
Success ends on the day you die. On the day you die, all wealth and possessions and positions will be immediately transferred to someone else. And even if you get to pick where they go, the reality is that person is always someone other than you.
Success is never enough. Financial success and prominence will never satisfy the inmost desires of our soul. No matter the amount of financial success or popularity or power earned, it always leaves us wanting more.
Significance always lasts. Significance will always outlast you. Even when you are no longer present, your significance will still be yours. And nothing can ever take that away from you. No one can erase the impact of your life lived well.
Significance carries on. Significance keeps on giving. When you positively change the life of another human being . . . and that person changes the life of another . . . who impacts the life of another . . . who influences another . . .
Significance satisfies our soul. While the thirst for success is never quenched, significance satisfies our deepest heart and soul. It allows us to lay our head on our pillow each night confident that we lived a valuable and fulfilling day.
Significance is the call to the Christ-follower. Jesus calls us to pursue what matters most, and that’s a life of serving and giving, not chasing and collecting.
What does success look like to you?