Re-Imagining Success

How you measure success depends on what you were trying to accomplish. And the less clear you are about your purpose the less clear you will be about if you got it done. This may seem obvious but for many of us, we do what we do and simply keep doing it – just because we did it yesterday, too.

In her book (Not)Keeping Up With Our Parents Nan Mooney looks at the way the current economy functions and who it serves (and even more who it doesn’t). She then urges all of us to begin to rethink what we really want out of life and to reframe it in ways that come down to more than earning more money than our parents. An excerpt of the book is in this month’s Utne Reader in the article “Reimagining the American Dream.” Mooney traces the development of today’s middle class and the economic supports provided to make it happen (GI Bill, employer provided health care, low cost public college educations, etc.) and how the kinds of things that put the good life within reach of many are gradually being eroded. People spend more money on the basics than ever before. Efforts to maintain high standards of living now result in the highest levels of consumer debt in history. Less and less people have employer provided health care. College costs more and college based employment has led to flat incomes – making college a less and less fruitful investment in our financial futures.

Mooney believes that this burgeoning crisis is an opportunity to reimagine what is really important about life. She writes, “It is a question about finding a way to grow comfortable in our current insecurity. To believe that identity equals more than money.” In other words, we have adopted certain values – inherited them and they have shaped us. They are not the only options for what is important. Already people are suggesting other keys to meaningful lives that deal with things other than accumulation.

She also knows that change is hard and it will take a certain amount of discomfort – not everyone will be willing to initiate it. Referring to the work of Paul Fussell and the notion of “category X” (a group of people who choose their values and actions based on something other than the economic class to which they belong), Nooney seems to believe that the kinds of changes that need to happen are possible but require someone to get them started. Fussell understands category X people to define themselves not by their financial status but rather by their “strenuous effort of discovery in which curiosity and originality are indispensible.” In other words, courageous and creative leadership is needed to engage our culture(s) with new values and new ways of measuring success.

Organizations which are going to add value to the redefining of our world will need to have this kind of spirit – one that leads to discovery, creativity and risk-taking for the sake of freeing people from the few ways that they have to imagine success and engage their lives. Churches, non-profit organizations, and for-profit businesses that want to leave their mark on the world and set people free to live in new ways will need to take risks, be clearer than ever about their sense of purpose and the values they espouse, and be courageous enough to pursue new lines of work that may have not been “successful” in some other system of defining value.

As I have gone through transition in the last few months I have found that I and the others on the A.R.E. team have been wrestling with what we are here for, what we stand for, and what we are accomplishing. It is hard work but fulfilling. I was glad to find Nan Mooney’s article – she felt like a kindred spirit on the journey. Check her out and ask yourself, “Does what I do and where I work help us to imagine a different kind of world?” If not – start reframing your dreams. If so – get to work!

- Dave Daubert