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Kerry Gordon Ph.D., Clinical Member OSP Profile · · Subdomain Re-visioning Success Even if you don't know what you want, buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow. Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you." - Rumi One thing I've learned in more than 15 years as a psychotherapist is that we are all in our own way desperately searching to find our place in the world. There is a common fantasy that if we could finally achieve success and be declared successful, then our search would finally be over. Being recognized as successful would, once and for all, settle the question of our worthiness and purpose for being. The striking thing in my experience, however, is that attaining the outward trappings of success and being recognized as successful by others does little to reduce the anxiety of our desperate searching. Rich or poor, famous or anonymous, we continue to feel driven; striving without any real sense of what we're striving for. What is it about success that makes it so elusive? We tend to speak of it in material terms, as though it was something solid. But at the very moment that we reach to take hold of it, it slips through our fingers. Grasping success is like trying to nail Jello to a tree - it's frustrating. And yet we are nothing if not persistent. We try to earn it, buy it, own it, wear it, wield it - but even working twice as hard as we can, we never quite get it. In reality, the thing we don't seem to get is that success, the object of our desire, is no object at all. We never get "it" because there is no "it" to get. Success is not a thing - the "what" of life, but a process - the "how" of living it. And though it's been said that "success is not a destination but a journey," in a world that has become increasingly objectified, we nonetheless raise up success as the ultimate object. We live in hope that success, whatever it is, will save us from anonymity. And the tragedy is that we pursue this illusion with the single-minded focus of an addict chasing a high. In a world where success is power, possessions, or position, which is to say an object held outside ourselves, we are doomed to live in a state of apprehension, constantly striving, never sure if we have enough or are enough. Most of us, brought up in the modern scientific tradition, have come to believe that what can't be touched, measured, or otherwise quantified is not "really real." Within that belief system, our deepest inner self, which we might also call our soul, becomes an object of scorn. We show our contempt by turning away. That which we don't understand we deny until our authentic self, our soulful self, is no longer heard except vaguely perhaps in our dreams or in the pathology of our illnesses. What is called for is the re-enchantment of reality, which means reinstating a soulful view of the world in which success, rather than being an object, is experienced as part of a living, evolutionary process of growth and change. The objectification of reality has allowed us to forget that the world is created as much from the inside out as from the outside in. As soulful beings we are empowered to remember that life is a co-creative affair in which our beliefs, continuously demonstrated through our actions, are not merely shaped by the world but serve to shape it as well. As long as we look to the world "out there" for validation and approval, we are doomed to live a life of despair, hopelessly searching for the one missing thing that will affirm our worthiness. A very wise teacher once told me that the antidote for depression is action. The belief that we must first perfect ourselves in order to earn the right to be in the world is a debilitating fantasy. On the contrary, what is needed is that we go into the world with all our human imperfections and offer something anyway, regardless of whether or not we feel right or ready. If we persist in the belief that life happens to us instead of through us, success will forever elude us. Success is the enactment of our vision, the embodiment of a special purpose for being that is unique to each of us and waiting to be fulfilled. Success is not, in the end, measured in achievements but rather is expressed in the responsibility that each of us takes in living our life fully and having the courage to be who we really are. No one outside ourselves can tell us how to do that. But if we are committed to a path of growth and self-discovery we can find guidance, someone who can help us explore the depths of our soul and embrace its truth. One of my roles as a psychotherapist is to help clients discover that we already possess the thing that we are searching for. Success is always already within us and continuously expresses itself in the astonishment and delight we feel in our own growth and transformation. If you have questions about this article or would like to read more please feel free to contact me. The psychotherapists appearing on this site are independent. They are not employed nor controlled by therapytoronto.ca. therapytoronto.ca is acting solely as a listing service for the convenience of those seeking the services of psychotherapists.