Success
Yesterday in church, my pastor mentioned Cassie Burnell, the 17-year-old girl who died in the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, USA. In case you don't know the story (where have you been?!), two high-school students went on a shooting rampage. It was reported that one of the gunmen came upon Cassie, who was kneeling down in prayer, and asked her, "Do you believe in God?". When Cassie said yes, witnesses said, the gunman shot her dead.
Anyway... when my pastor told the story, I nearly teared up. He said that at Cassie Burnell's memorial service, 16 youths pledged to live their lives for God. Cassie may have died young, but she left an impact. She made her life count. One of my deepest fears is that I have not made my life count. That I'm wasting it away, I've yet to achieve anything significant, there'll be no particular reason to remember me after I leave.
In contrast, I interview lots of young people, some of whom have done amazing things and are incredibly successful in their chosen fields. Occasionally I come away from the interview, thinking, "This guy is only 19 and has already done so much. What have I been doing with my life?!"
Yet that's not really the way I measure success. But I often forget that. It's so much easier to adopt the ordinary concept that success = achievements.
To me, the true measure of success is in living for God and making my life count. And that's harder in the sense that there's nothing concrete I can see or measure to tell me where I am on the "scale". Actually, there probably isn't even any such scale but I would like to think there is, because it would help if I could know whether I'm doing things right and whether I'm doing enough. Especially since I keep worrying that I'm not doing enough. (More guilt! Blek.)
When it comes to making my life count, I really do wonder what people will say of me once I'm dead. If I'd managed to make some kind of difference in the lives of people around me, I'd consider my life worthwhile. Unfortunately most of the time I have no idea how I'm doing, and I'm tempted to look at the disorganised mess of my life and feel like an utter incompetent failure. Like, this afternoon I calculated next month's budget & expenses, and the resultant figure was enough to get me down for the rest of the day. *sighhh*
As for living for God, so often I wonder what God is thinking of me and whether He is pleased with me. Is it normal for someone to be so needy for reassurance? It's just that I fail Him so often, I'm agonisingly aware that I'm constantly "missing the mark", as it were.
The very depressing conclusion is that not only am I not a success in the conventional definition of success = achievements, I am also probably not a success if measured by my own personal standards! Oh dear oh dear.