Crisis of Success

A few weeks ago, a close friend asked me if I had a fear of success. I still think about her question. I think about it daily. 


I'm sure you've heard that it's lonely at the top. Can you imagine hitting rock bottom once you reach the tip top? One major cause is "encore anxiety" or the fear you won't be able to repeat or sustain the perceived success. What people forget is that the price of success is not just hard work and sacrifice. Most time it involves emptiness and solitude because everyone cannot go with you. Therefore, some are dumbfounded by the seclusion and remoteness that success brings.


With the privilege of success comes a greater sense of responsibility. People begin to depend on you. Your success becomes their success. Likewise, your failure becomes their failure. It takes a strong person to shoulder the brunt of a failure when others' livelihoods are contingent on your success. Not everyone can handle that sort of pressure even if success comes with it.


Much to my chagrin, I am learning that the toughest challenge to a person's character is not adversity but how one deals with the privileges and pressures of success. I always hear that money changes people but that is not true. Money and success allow you to be a bigger whatever you are without the money and success. So if you are a giver, you become a bigger giver. If you are stingy, you become more stingy. Money doesn't change anyone; it simply makes your more of what you already are.


With all these concerns about success, why seek it? Well, God wants us to make the most of our talents for His glory. And that's the key: His glory; not our own. So if God's plan involves you on the world stage, accept your role and make sure you acknowledge His.


Soli Deo Gloria,


SA Brown