How To Measure Success

HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children;

To earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of
false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others; to give of one’s self;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden
patch or a redeemed social condition;

To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;

To know even one life had breathed easier because you have lived ---

This is to have succeeded.


- This poem is generally attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

You need to read this over a few times, digest it and see how you stack up against these various benchmarks. These are very different measuring sticks of success as those ascribed to by the Fortune 500 companies.

No where will you find the mention of accumulating wealth and material things as a measurement of success. The exact opposite is true. Succes is attained by giving and not receiving, by serving others, even if it's just one life that you touch. The Lord gave the greatest example in serving others when He washed the feet of His disciples at the Last Supper.

Every once in a while we hear of a man who has exemplified this teaching. One that I can recall is Aaron Feuerstein, owner of Malden Mills, a company that made Polartec clothing. After a fire destroyed the complex on the Lawrence-Methuen line, he became a national celebrity when he announced that he would rebuild in Massachusetts and continue wages for his workers until the new plant was up and running again. He did this even though insurance didn't fully cover the costs of rebuilding, and competition from less expensive foreign fleece producers further cut into Malden Mills' bottom line.

Today, Feuerstein splits his attention between financing tasks and the mill's business. He lives in a plush but modest condominium in the Brookline neighborhood where he grew up, in the heart of his Orthodox Jewish community. He sneers at what he considers the excess consumption of large houses and boasts about the secondhand engine that's gotten his dark green 1997 Cadillac beyond 158,000 miles.

How do you think he stacks up against the benchmarks in Emerson's poem?


God's instructions for how to live your life and gain eternal success can be found in Matthew Chapters 5, 6, 7. It's been documented for almost 2000 years, yet people still go searching aimlessly for the secret of success.