Tag: Success

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Minute Meditation – Jesus Never Promised Success

At no point in the Gospel does Jesus tell us that if we follow him our lives will be filled with success or that people will like us for it. Quite the contrary, actually! We follow a man who came to share the love of God with the world through healing and forgiveness, but was rejected by the religious elite, betrayed by his closest friends, and murdered as a common criminal. This is not simply Jesus’s fate many years ago, but ours today. “Take up your crosses daily,” he tells us. While there is nothing wrong with hoping for success in our lives, our faith is destined for problems if it becomes an expectation we cannot live without. The road of discipleship is filled with failure; if we demand that our lives be successful, we won’t make it very far.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM, page 28

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60 Second Wisdom – The Leading Indicator of Success with Matthew Kelly

The Leading Indicator of Success – There Are Two Types of People – Matthew Kelly – 60 Second Wisdom

“The great predictor of success is not talent or opportunity, but attitude towards learning. Developing the habit of continuous learning leads to success both personal and professionally.

Benjamin Barber wrote: “I divide the world into learners and non-learners. There are people who learn, who are open to what happens around them, who listen, who hear the lessons. When they do something stupid, they don’t do it again. And when they do something that works a little bit, they do it even better the next time. The question to ask is not whether you are a success or a failure, but whether you are a learner or a non-learner.”

Become a life-long learner. It is essential in our quest to live more meaningful lives. Read books, take courses, listen to podcasts, and watch videos that help you become the-best-version-of-yourself.”

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Daily Message from Pope Francis – To Love Like Christ


WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2021
“To love like Christ means saying ‘no’ to other ‘loves’ that the world offers us: love of money, love of success, vanity… These deceptive paths of “love” distance us from the Lord’s love and lead us to become more and more selfish, narcissistic, overbearing. And being overbearing leads to a degeneration of love, to abuse others, to making our loved ones suffer… To love as the Lord loves us means to appreciate the people beside us, to respect their freedom, to love them as they are, not as we want them to be, gratuitously. Ultimately, Jesus asks us to abide in His love, to dwell in His love, not in our ideas, not in our own self-worship. Those who dwell in self-worship live in the mirror: always looking at themselves… Opening our heart to others, this is love, giving ourselves to others.” Pope Francis

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Choose to Pursue Success. Don’t Confuse it with Excess

Our hearts and souls long for greater accomplishments than the accumulation of material possessions.Think about it. Nobody sits across the table from another human being and declares their greatest goal in life is to own as much stuff as possible.

We dream much bigger dream for our lives.

We speak of significance and influence. We want to be known as good fathers and mothers, husbands and wives. We want to be loving parents, citizens, and contributing members to the people around us.

We dream of solving problems. We desire to use our gifts and talents and resources to make the world a better place. We want to know our lives mattered—that they stood for something bigger than ourselves.

We desire freedom and opportunity. We long to live our life in a way that is consistent with our personal values, engaged in the pursuits most important to us, and creating opportunity for others to do the same.

We think of love, hope, and joy. We desire to be fully-known and fully-accepted. We know the importance of hope in our own lives and desire to offer it to others. We pursue lasting joy in living a fulfilled life.

If asked to define “what does success look like in your life?” these are the attributes and descriptions many of us would use to answer that question.

We desire significance and influence and impact.But then we turn around and spend most our time chasing things that don’t matter.

We live in a world that has substituted excess for success. And we have too often fallen for the false substitute.

n a consumer-driven, possession-focused society, the demand for material possessions must continually increase. Our society works day-and-night to constantly manufacture discontent and need.

The advertisements surrounding us each day serve one purpose: Stir up discontent, hi-jack passion, and get us to consume more than we need.

Excess becomes our definition of success.

We begin to spend our hours earning more and more money. We spend our money buying things we don’t need. We waste our energy and our time caring for more than we need. And then we punch the clock on Monday morning just to start the process all over again.

But accumulating excess is a short-sighted goal. It is not what we desire most for the one life we get to live.

It is not a substitute for real success in life. In fact, most of the time it only distracts us from it.

Excess material possessions steal our money, time, energy, and freedom. Along the way, our definition of true success gets lost in the noise and accumulation of things we don’t need.

Rediscover your greatest goals in life. Reevaluate your most important pursuits. Define success for yourself.

Choose to pursue your unique version of success. And never confuse it with foolish excess.