Secular Ambition, Success & The Meaning Of Life

The business school from which this blogger received his undergraduate degree sends him a magazine every so often that has interesting articles in which he finds a passing interest, but the interest passes so fast that as soon as he goes from one article to the next he has forgotten the last with hardly an exception.  The part of the magazine that interests him most is the back section that has the alumni notes.  Even though he does not know any of them, for many years have passed since his graduation, his heart is warmed by learning of their successes.

Then the thought turns to the individuals behind the successes which this blogger wishes that they would continue.  What he does not know is whether the secular ambition that each person nurtures with gifts from God and personal diligence is blind to God, and if the fruits of such successes fill those who benefit from them with contentment and inner peace at some point in time.

A question a business school usually do not raise is the cost, if any, to one's soul when one has a certain, or an unlimited, amount of ambition.  Another question that is also avoided is whether at or near the end of a graduate's life the ambition that has led to the successes contributed to the meaning of his or her life.  Perhaps these questions are meaningless since any answer that could be given does not give rise to a recognizable profit on the income statement.

One may object to the fact that it is not possible to monetize something so abstract and subjective as a cost to the soul or of the meaning of life, but then in many courts of law, a monetary amount is sometimes awarded for pain and suffering (aside from medical bills and lost wages), as well as loss of consortium, which are just as abstract and subjective as unfulfillment and the lack of interior peace where one's soul is concerned.

On the flip side, the same two questions could be asked of one who has no ambition, who wastes God's gifts, what the cost is of emptiness and meaninglessness that the soul has to suffer.

The lack of popularity of subjects such as ambition that is blind to God and meaning of life in daily conversation does not mean that there are no words in any language that man can use to verbalize them.  The reason that these may seem like taboo subjects because this world is already secularized and even though the meaning of life is not a religious topic, people are afraid to broach it for what if the answer is: there is no meaning?  If there is no meaning, then how would one answer the next logical question: why bother living?

If the answer is that there is still so much to do, a family to raise, much to see and experience, then life's meaning has as much depth as a set menu at a restaurant, dictating what one is to have and in what order over the course of a hour or so, or in some other settings, over many boring hours, waiting while hungry.  At the end of a cycle, another one arises, and one needs to be fed again, even as what one takes in as a whole could change as one matures and advances in age.  Yet an unspecified and unspoken hunger remains, no matter how much food and drink one consumes.

No amount of consumption, whether it be food or entertainment or anything else worldly, will satisfy a hungry soul that lives without meaning.  That hunger becomes more pronounced as one's time on earth nears the end, when such hunger begins to fade away gradually, only to be overtaken by a growing fear that supplants any feeling or recollection of hunger.

However, there are true saints whose souls do not hunger or fear for they have found peace within that rests upon faith and love for God from which complete fulfillment and an ineffable joy spring forth.  This blog is not a place where meaning can be found and the soul's hunger can be satisfied.

God created each person as a unique individual, and each person is given a unique way to peace and fulfillment, which is not the absence of conflicts and the presence of all things luxurious but is an inexplicable joy that emanates from within an interior peace that is constant despite being immersed in stressful situations and lacking the means to live a pampered life.

No therapist is able to illuminate the way.  Even if one has chosen to be a religious serving God, sometimes that path can be shrouded in darkness.  Light that leads to a life with meaning and inner peace can only come from God, through the Son of God and His Mother.  It is a path that is paved with mercy provided that one works to the best of one's ability to deserve such mercy just as success in this world cannot be attained by secular ambition alone without personal diligence.  For those who have achieved successes and those who have not, they would be blessed  if at some point every person's ambition (or lack thereof) that has led to such successes (or lack thereof) would to some degree match God's hope in each person which consist of these simple things: faith in God, humility and love for God and neighbor.