Success and Significance

I was watching one of Spiritual Cinema Circle's better offerings last night and was taken by a statement one of its participants made. The movie is "Living Luminaries: On the Serious Business of Happiness" (I may have the sub-title slightly wrong). Rev. Michael Beckwith, who is one of my favorite visionaries, said, "So many people are so caught up in their search for success that they forget the search for significance."

Wow.

Exactly.

If the work I do isn't *significant*, does it ultimately matter if I'm successful at it? I don't think so. But what if the work I'm doing is significant without bringing me worldly success? Is that a better outcome? Yes, at least to some degree. Ideally, of course, I achieve both. 

Beckwith's observation is in keeping with the teachings of other luminaries, including one with whom I have the fortune to be personally acquainted, James L. White. Jim is passionate about helping people find and pursue their purpose in life.He's written a book called What's My Purpose? and offers courses and seminars and coaching along those lines. Like others in the world of self-help who are convinced that the key to happiness lies in finding and living your true purpose, Jim would probably agree with Beckwith.

If your purpose in life is to be successful according to the world's definition -- i.e., materially or in terms of power and fame -- then you're going to make a whole different set of choices than you'll make if your purpose in life is to be of significant value to others and to yourself.

The two are not necessarily in conflict but it does seem to me it would be supremely difficult to pursue them both with equal passion. When you choose where to focus, you opt out of a whole list of choices on the other side of the list.

But how does one measure significance? Does it, e.g., demand that you achieve some measure of fame or notoriety or audience? Is significance a matter of how many people find you significant? Or is it sufficient for you to feel that your work is significant? Is significance even subject to measurement? Are there degrees of significance?

This feels on some level like an extension of the learning I gleaned from my all-time best spiritual friend, the late Rev. Rory Elder. He taught me that life isn't about what you accomplish, it's about how you show up. May be these are two branches of the same plant.