Today I was meeting with a group of men at my church. Out of all of them (dog-gone-it!) I was the oldest. Don’t even go there… I am only 33… hmmm that does looks older in print…
Anyway, we were discussing the issue of work and its impact on men. Work is a significant part of a man’s identity. That’s just the facts. How well we men feel we are doing at work impacts our level of satisfaction with life. One contention is that a man’s feelings of satisfaction come from 6 elements. Success. Recognition. The job “fits” him. Fair compensation. Community. Balance with the rest of life. We had a good discussion, until I departed from the script (the written questions in the discussion guide). That didn’t go so well.
I asked a simple question. “What is ‘Success’?” And the age gap got wider… another reminder that I am that thing call an “adult”. To a man everyone at the table thought that the definition and standard of success is within the individual… but I disagreed. The consensus was that success at work was about “serving Jesus, and having an eternal impact.” O.K. now look. That is success in life, period. I don’t think that is drivel or shallow, but I don’t think that speaks to the particulars. When you walk into a job and do your best to be a benefit and then get fired, because you were a detriment… are you being successful? When you are laid off from a job and go home to tell your wife that you aren’t getting a check anymore. What are you going to say? “Honey, don’t worry, because I am a success! Even though my aim was to be a benefit to the company and earn a good living, I am still successful, because I love Jesus!” You’d better duck!
Young people these days…