"Know thyself," the ancients Greeks said, and "to thine own self be true," the Poet responded. There is much wisdom in holding an honest mirror up to ourselves. We must ask ourselves: What do I value? What is important to me and my family? What do I really want out of life? What do I want to be? You're not getting any younger. The road is long. Time is short. “At my back,” says the poet Andrew Marvel, “I hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” The time to act is now. To the question "What do I want?" many people respond: "To be happy." But is happiness the goal or the residual of working towards that goal? Happiness, like a cat, will avoid you if you try any coax it. But if you go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping onto your lap. So forget pursuing happiness. Pin your hopes on work, on family, on learning, on loving.
But if happiness is a questionable goal, what about wealth? The little-engine-that-could spirit for many is a mirage. Money won't solve your problems. It will only pay the bills. But those who have fought their way out of the projects or the barrios know that it is absurd to question the legitimacy of the pursuit of wealth. For poverty is the enemy of the human spirit. Wealth is more than an idle dream. It's a practical possibility, particularly for those who shun the image of wealth-- the fancy cars, the pretty clothes, the social swirl. That's less important than the freedom it offers. If you have money, you have options. Riches become a side effect of personal achievement, a grade bestowed by capitalism for excellence, the payoff for winning the great game. A century ago, the Reverend Russell Herman Conwell went about this nation delivering a popular speech. He praised not only the virtues of hard work, but its rewards as well. "To secure wealth is an honorable ambition," he said "and is the one great test of a person's usefulness to others. I say, get rich, get rich!"
Maybeth Grey wrote to me in 1988 that “money isn’t everything and I think we need to be careful that it doesn’t fill you minds, I fear for folks when they do too well. Ian, who used to be a very keen Christian, has gone up the General Motors ladder and is now the personnel manager of Chevelot for the whole of the states. But as he has done better and better, he has grown cold in spiritual things and has little time for God. Their marriage has fallen apart.” Dad would frequently say that “true success in life consists in discerning and doing joyfully and obediently the revealed will of God.” As Malcolm Muggeridge writes, fame, money, pleasure multiplied by a million “are nothing—less than nothing, a positive impediment—measured against one draught of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.”