Secrets of Personal Empowerment: Beyond Success and Failure
The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
– John Ruskin
Imagine a world in which the concepts of success and failure don’t exist. Now, that’s really hard for most of us. After all, isn’t that how most of us judge our standing and that of others in society? What kind of car I drive? Do others admire me because of my big, beautiful house? And how about my kids attending a prestigious university? But success and failure don’t exist at all, not like the table beneath my laptop or the chair across from me as I write in this coffee shop.
The notion of success and failure are cultural constructs that can be embraced or discarded because they are a reality that exists only in our minds. And, it may be advantageous to imagine a life not framed by these concepts because our personal happiness — even the future of the planet — may depend upon us finding alternative paradigms for being productive and responsible in our world. Success and failure are the source of needless confusions, pain and suffering at a personal level, and might not the impulse to be seen as successful behind the economic forces driving climate change that is threatening human existence on the planet?
These twin concepts of success and failure play on a common and deep-rooted fear that I am inadequate as I am. This sense of inferiority produces a craving for recognition and prestige as a way of proving to ourselves that we are worthy. The trap of success and failure lies in using external cues as measurements of self-worth, as a way of compensating for that which we sense to be lacking within. In such a scenario, our sense of self-worth comes to depend on what we imagine to be the judgment of others.
This leaves us buffeted around by ideas of self-worth as measured by the accumulation of goods and wealth or seeking to obtain the approval of others, leaving us open to facile manipulation by external actors preying on our insecurities. And, as success requires sui generis a comparison with others, this reinforces or induces the feeling of impoverishment within, leading to a constant examination of self to be better than I am. We come to love the idea of success rather than loving ourselves. Our inner, innate richness is denied.
The pursuit of success can be seen so clearly in the why and how some parents raise their children. Having accomplished children becomes a way of displaying one’s success, and as a result, childhood may become filled with resume-building activities, especially for those from upper middle class and wealthy families. A university chaplain recently made the link for me between this manner of child rearing and the binge drinking on campus, noting that alcohol numbs the confusion, pain and suffering that derives from the habit of judging oneself by external factors. The only antidote to this insecurity is to understand that I am enough just as I am. Parents can give that through unconditioned loving. Teaching children self-love encourages their emotional self-reliance, self-love enables confidence to trust inner creativity; and self-love endures for a lifetime.
As persons and communities, if we abandon, the success and the failure paradigm, what do we replace it with? After all, isn’t the individual striving that comes from success-seeking the driver of competition and the motor of our economic development and the vast accumulated wealth of modern Western society? By now, you can guess that my answer to this question is a resounding “no!” Hasn’t individual competition given rise to the wealthiest nation on earth? “No!”
Such beliefs are merely ideological.
No doubt, we need to lead productive lives filled with personal initiative. That is just part of being a responsible adult and member of society. Life demands this of us. But where else does productivity and initiative come from if not from seeking success and the fear of being regarded as a failure? It comes from the creative spirit that is innate to all of us. Acknowledging this inner creativity and releasing it provides the energy that we need to be productive and responsible.
It is quite the opposite of competition, which rest on the notion of sensing that others are ahead of us somehow, and that we have to beat them at their own game. That is not creativity, however. That amounts to a limited form of imitation and promotes conformity, rather than authenticity. Tapping into the innate creativity in all of us is frankly a lot more fun way to approach work and industry than is the pursuit of success. Trusting in one’s creativity and manifesting it into the world is a lot like being a child left to imagine and play out the role of hero, facing danger and adversity, or from a hero’s position of doubt, displaying courage, bravery or self-sacrifice.
At its core, this reliance on inner creativity is extremely entrepreneurial. In this scenario, one’s joy comes from the sheer delight of doing, not from the outcome. And from my personal experience, I have learned that if the original vision of the hero’s quest or goal is not reached, that doesn’t really matter at all. It’s all been fun, and more importantly, all sorts of unforeseen opportunities pop up in the act of creative productivity that I can take advantage of. The act of doing becomes the important measure.
In this alternative paradigm of self-reliant creativity and of finding one’s own inner direction, one avoids thoughts of should-be or ought-to-be that derive from a focus on success and failure. Being self-reliant in this way may be the ultimate act of self-love, and enables us to project this disposition out into the world. We are all enriched by such authentic inner directedness.