Written by: Jeff B. Miller, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Warning, this article comes from a Christian perspective, but it will not be anything you’ve heard before in church.
You are experiencing one or both of these vicious phenomena:
You are not as successful as you thought you’d be.
You are successful, but you don’t feel that you are.
I’d like to offer a reason for why this may be–-a reason and a solution:
You don’t know what it means to be a human, and because of that, you don’t know how to know your purpose. Since you don’t know your purpose, you aren’t sure what you should be doing, and anything you are putting effort into, you are worried that it’s the wrong thing.
Here’s another likely truth:
You only have the barometer of what others are doing and what people think about you to know if you’re making it. The insatiable need for external validation is draining your life.
This is a trap. It’s a myth that it matters what anyone else says. Your worth is both objective and subjective. It’s objective in the marketplace. You either have the skills to pay the bills or you don’t. The beautiful thing about this is that almost anything you need to learn, you can learn. But it's also subjective, because certain skills only matter in certain contexts.
I was an opera singer, and I think I have a pretty good singing voice. It just so happens that in my ghostwriting business, nobody cares about my singing voice. And why should they? That’s a subjective skill, valuable to some, but not to others.
But how does this truth make a difference when trying to answer the question "why am I failing?"
The blame lies with my Christian worldview. I don’t mean a true Christian worldview, but a skewed one coming from the world of Churchianity. That version, which is not all bad, comes with a hefty dose of contradictions.
Tim Keller, beloved pastor and author, says this in his The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness:
“the problem with self-esteem – whether it is high or low – is that, every single day, we are in the courtroom.”
I bring this up, because this is a common and mostly true opinion held by Christians. Keller’s work revolves around helping Christians apply the truth of the gospel to our lives. What he is
saying is that understanding that God has done everything to accept you and loves you based on your transformation to a new creation in Christ (paid for by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross), you no longer need to measure yourself by anything you do.
“Every single day we are in the courtroom.”
But I would say that he is only partially right. It is gloriously true that our identity is in Christ. But he is misapplying it, because even when we accept this wonderful news, we are still in the courtroom “every single day.”
“How is this supposed to make me not feel like a failure?”
It’s not. That is, if you’re failing, I can’t help you not feel like a failure. I can only help you succeed.
How?
By showing you that what Keller is wrong about is his view of following God. He views it as a duty, at least regarding this statement. He would say that “because we are accepted, we will obey God.” True, but why? Keller is like all Christians I know, duty-bound to God. We obey God because of what he has done for us, because we love him, and because he says so.
But I’d say that’s incomplete (while true). We obey God also because God’s ways, the righteousness he calls us to, are in alignment with the principles that govern the world. Morality is a code of conduct based on how the world is.
For instance, You must “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is profound. It means you must love people, all people, yourself included. It means you cannot say you love others if you don’t love yourself. You cannot say you love yourself if you don’t love others.
This is causality at work. Not duty.
To quote Ayn Rand on this (yes, I know she was an atheist):
Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course.
Reality confronts man with a great many “musts,” but all of them are conditional; the formula of realistic necessity is: “You must, if—” and the “if” stands for man’s choice: “—if you want to achieve a certain goal.” You must eat, if you want to survive. You must work, if you want to eat. You must think, if you want to work. You must look at reality, if you
want to think—if you want to know what to do—if you want to know what goals to choose—if you want to know how to achieve them.
In order to make the choices required to achieve his goals, a man needs the constant, automatized awareness of the principle which the anti-concept “duty” has all but obliterated in his mind: the principle of causality—specifically, of Aristotelian final causation (which, in fact, applies only to a conscious being), i.e., the process by which an end determines the means, i.e., the process of choosing a goal and taking the actions necessary to achieve it.
In a rational ethics, it is causality—not “duty”—that serves as the guiding principle in considering, evaluating and choosing one’s actions, particularly those necessary to achieve a long-range goal. Following this principle, a man does not act without knowing the purpose of his action. In choosing a goal, he considers the means required to achieve it, he weighs the value of the goal against the difficulties of the means and against the full, hierarchical context of all his other values and goals. He does not demand the impossible of himself, and he does not decide too easily which things are impossible. He never drops the context of the knowledge available to him, and never evades reality, realizing fully that his goal will not be granted to him by any power other than his own action, and, should he evade, it is not some Kantian authority that he would be cheating, but himself . . . .
A disciple of causation is profoundly dedicated to his values, knowing that he is able to achieve them. (Philosophy Who Needs It p.98)
If you’re still here, consider one of the last lines: “it is not some Kantian authority that he would be cheating, but himself.” Kant was the one, if I can oversimplify, who said anything we do that benefits us in any way is immoral. This is nonsense and has screwed up the world’s population since we swallowed it.
This “Kantian authority” would be God in our example. It’s not God “that we would be cheating, but ourselves.”
So, what about failure? One of two things is happening in your life. You are either failing to achieve the goal you have set for yourself, in which case you are failing, or you have not failed, but because you are duty bound, the standard is impossible to reach. It is an infinitely high bar, a goal post that keeps moving.
I don’t judge my self based on a failure to achieve a goal except by objectively saying, “I failed to achieve the goal.” Then I ask, “was it the right goal?” “Did I try my best?” “Can I still achieve it?” “What have I learned from the failure?”
The Power of I Am
“I Am” is the statement that “I exist.” What did Rand say? “Life or death is the fundamental alternative” and “a basic act of choice.” Because I exist, I am, I must choose existence. With Hamlet, I have to consider, “to be or not to be.” He’s right, that is the question. That is always the question.
If I am to be, then I must act accordingly by seeking God and his laws, which are all causal. He is saying, “Here’s how to live and not die.” God has said this from the beginning.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live. (Deut 30:19 ESV)
“The wages of sin is death” (Ro 6:23). Sin is ignoring the path of life, the path of causality according to God’s design.
If you put down the duty-bound standard of infinite perfection when you judge yourself, you will begin to think objectively. You may fail, but you will not consider your very Self as a failure. You will, in fact, constantly succeed in the things that are achievable.
Once you begin to feel you have the power to do things, you will feel the stability of the fact of your existence. You will feel your agency. You will begin to accomplish everything you want to accomplish, so long as it is rational and possible. You will not feel like a failure, even when you are failing, because all such failure is temporary on the road to success. You have been created to succeed, and even failure is acceptable to your creator. The man with one talent was rebuked, not for failing to win, but failing to dare and try.
Jeff B. Miller, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jeff B. Miller has written hundreds of books as a ghostwriter and has begun to put his name on some things. He writes about faith, the agency we have as individuals with choices, and power we have to create our worlds through stewardship and owning our judgments. With a unique approach, JB helps clients and readers eradicate people pleasing, imposter syndrome, and makes them bullet proof to those who would abuse them or seek control of their life and choices.
