The Road to Success

Let me caution you before we go any further that the Road to Success is not the road to riches.  Riches and success are not interchangeable or equal.  Though some would argue that riches are the gateway for success, it is not so.  Let me define a unique group of people our society currently concedes: The Unsuccessful Rich.  This group of individuals has acquired money through a source of minimal work or value.  It is a fact that anything obtained without effort, sacrifice or labor is treated as carelessly as it was acquired.  Our eyes are on them as they spend so frivolously and wastefully, riches without purpose; finances without direction.  We watch on as they destroy themselves through various indulgences, and through exorbitant spending trying to fill voids that riches or material things will never fill. Perhaps the pursuit of riches alone is its own destruction. When we desire riches without a framework in which those riches can serve the greater good, we have given money destructive power and value. Everything created must have a purpose, must exist for some reason.  So, if we are creating money without giving it a constructive purpose for existing, we have given it over naturally to idle means.  We should be careful not to ask of God riches in which we have not already devised a good purpose for.  Should He happen to give us what we ask, it might lead to our own demise.  We think winning the lottery might fix our problems or change our lives for the better because it would lift the burden of working for wages, or working to barely get by.  In my studies, however, I have not found where that burden is supposed to be lifted.  A man who does not work does not eat, right?  And is it not true that you understand the value of money because you have worked so tirelessly for it?  It is not so much the work that we do that determines success, but the spirit in which we administer that work.  If we are able to give cheerfully, we have given more than the one who griped about it, even if he gave in greater quantity.  If we are able to love joyfully, we are wealthier than the one who is sour to others, though he may sit on top of the world - he will be there alone.  And not only is he alone, but he is also scared for all that he has.  For a man who has taken riches as his security places his footing on shifty ground.  Even the value of money fluctuates day by day, country by country. He will not be able to rest or have peace because his foundation is never resting, never peaceful. 

So, what does the Road to Success really look like?  What is the best pursuit for our lives? We must all live and survive.  We must all work.  We are required to.  That is what makes the world go round.  That we bear with one another, that we support one another, that we do our best to be contributors to a better society instead of adding to the collective disease.  What is the collective disease?  Selfishness.  Let me explain why.  One of the first lessons parents try to teach their children is how to share.  Learning how to give might be the greatest lesson of our time.  Giving is so enriching.  If we do not give, we cannot live.  That is exactly what selfishness does, it cuts off our circulation.  It impedes our ability to coexist.  Webster defines selfish as concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself; seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure or well-being without regard for others; arising from concern of one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others.  Surely, we are designed better than that.  I guarantee that you have the capacity to give more love, more time, more care, and more energy to those around you.  Where you think you have depleted all your resources, there is a resurgence that kicks in whenever you attempt to go above and beyond for a greater purpose.  You have not tapped into your full potential.  You are simply on the wrong road.    

So again, what does the Road to Success look like?  1 Timothy 6:11-19 tells us to "pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness...[and to] command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share...so they may take hold of the life that is truly life."  The scripture implies that there are two lives, that one is a pseudo life and the other the true life.  More so, we can possibly miss the true life if we do not take hold of it.  I don't know about you, but I would hate to get to the end of my life only to realize that there was a better, truer life available to me.  I would hate to get to the top of the mountain and see that I have climbed the wrong one and it was all for naught. 

Sometimes it’s easier to define things by first determining what it is not.  Paving your own road to success is as individual as one person’s love for sports or another's love for art.   Only you can know what expression of your heart you can offer with joy.  Only you can know what of your best you have to offer the world.  My joy is writing and I offer my gift as a labor of love.  What gives you joy?  What are you passionate about and confident in?  What puts a smile on your face and on the faces of those around you?  Perhaps we should first pave our road with characteristics and qualities we admire or want to develop in ourselves before we try to plot on it possessions and material things to acquire.