Critical moment of success

First part Let me remind ourselves that the word crisis means both danger and opportunity; for the two mutually contrasting phenomena are the word crisis as written in Chinese characters. And these phenomena are inherent in the human experience of success.

The word success has positive synonyms: blessing abundance, "sitting pretty," a pot of gold, room at the top. But our claim is that in success there also are the dangers of moral booby-traps, slippery precipices, falling rocks, unpredictable losses.

One memorable sermon I heard from the Silliman pulpit years ago was "A World of Falling Coconuts." It is true to life our country that when we go through a coconut plantation, we sometimes expose ourselves to the risk of falling coconuts. And this is true-to-life not only physically but spiritually as well.

The Rich Fool in the parable of Jesus exalts in his bumper crop: "I will build larger barns; I will increase capital; I will multiply my assets," he announces to himself.

And therein lies the critical moment of success.

For one thing, while success is indeed a good thing, if we get so drunk with it, we lose sight of the moral dimensions of living.

One of our pastimes is reading success stories: "How I got to the top of the totem pole," How I made my first million," How I cornered the Yamashita gold," How I built a business empire from nothing," "How I scaled the academic ladder and got to the top rung."

I suggest we look for something when we read stories like that: what has happened to the successful people in terms of their personal character? How are they doing in their relationships in family, in Church, in their neighborhood?

For you see, it is usual that to succeed there are some schemes that one has to follow: be a go-getter, keep your eye on the ball all day and night; lay aside everything else; and the book to read is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends And Influence People. There is merit in these schemes of course, and they do work for us in our feverish climb to success.

But sometimes we do these in exchange for moral rectitude, and therein lies the precariousness of success. Sometime ago I attended a conference on the subject "Business Matters." What was impressed in my mind was the personal testimony of a marketing executive who revealed to us his inner thoughts. He said:

"I was almost lost in the jungle of business success in Makati. I went into the pursuit of my goals with no moral scruples. I lied and lied for profits. I scrambled for something for nothing. And then, in the nick of time, I discovered (before I lost my wife and my children) that there was a moral tide running deep in the nature of things, and if I would run against that tide in peril to my life I had to turn around one hundred and eighty degrees."

My friends, in succeeding, let us not ignore the moral dimension. TO BE CONTINUED*

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