THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Every one of us wants to be successful, whatever “success” means because it means different things to different people as we each have our own definition of that word. One of our daughters wants to climb the corporate ladder. If she continues to do so, will she consider herself successful when her career ends? My question to her would be “How far up the ladder do you have to go to consider yourself to be successful?”

She could ask the same question of me. Now that I am on the verge of fully retiring (which my wife says is an impossibility), do I think I have been successful in my vocation or have I failed because I did not become a bishop? That would be an honest question for her to ask?

To each his/her own because our goals in life have to be ours and not those of someone else even those who love us the most. My daughters’ goals have to be their goals. They are who they are and I cannot ask them to be what I might want them to be but can only ask of them to be what they truly want to be. Too many children are weighed down by the burdens their parents impose on them.

Thus, the question that lurks in the minds of each of us as we grow up is “What is the key to success?” We want to find that key that will open that door that will lead us to a successful life, however we personally define what that is. We believe that if we can find that key – a Harvard education, the job offer of our dreams, whatever – it will unlock that door and life will be wonderful.

What my daughters will discover and what I have learned is what my comic friend Frank learned. He says to Ernest, “I spent years looking for the key to success – and then found out it’s a combination lock.” It certainly is! There is no one key to success; there are many: the right education, the right job, being in the right place at the right time, and so forth. No one thing will make us successful. It is a combination of many things.

However, there is one essential ingredient, I think, that must be ours if we want to have any chance of living a successful and fulfilling life. That essential ingredient is our faith. Our faith in God is what allows us to put whatever happens to us into a proper perspective. It helps us make sense out of what at the moment seems nonsense.

It is our faith that grounds us in this life. It is or faith that keeps us humble when we achieve success beyond our wildest dreams. And it is our faith that holds us up, even picks us up, when our dreams do not materialize or come crashing down on us through no fault of our own or even and especially because of our foolishness, however we would define that foolishness.

Our faith reminds us that some doors are locked to us and we will never find the keys. What is behind those doors is not who we are and not who God created us to be and that is okay. Our faith also reminds us that the doors we found the keys to open were the same doors others wanted to enter but did not have the keys. To each his/her own.