Success

The Rev. Ron Sala
The Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford
May 23, 2004

What is success? According to our reading this morning, which you may follow along with in your order of service, success is:

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people 
    and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics 
    and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
    whether by a healthy child,
    a garden patch 
    or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier 
    because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

To laugh often and much;
I’d like to start this morning with a “laughing drill.” It’s kind of like a musical round, except that most people can laugh better than they sing. I know that’s true of me. It’s also kind of like an orchestra where the instruments are our lungs, tracheas, diaphragms, funny bones, etc. It’s often said that frequent laughing is good for you. Or at least it’s not bad for you—unless you laugh at the wrong person….

In fact, some people get together regularly to do laugh exercises, something like the one we’re about to do.

First, we need our percussion section, where the big kettledrums are. They’ll be the people in the back half of the sanctuary. When I point at them, they’ll give a big Jabba the Hut belly laugh: HO! HO! HO! … HO! HO! HO! … Try it…. HO! HO! HO!

Next, we need the wind instruments, trombones, trumpets, flutes, etc. They’ll be the people in the front right of the sanctuary. They’ll give a loud chest laugh: HA! HA! HA! … HA! HA! HA! … Try it…. HA! HA! HA!

Finally, we need the stringed instruments, violins and violas. They give a high throat laugh: HE! HE! HE! … HE! HE! HE … Try it…. HE! HE! HE!

So, when I point at your section, give your type of laugh: HO! HO! HO! … HA! HA! HA! … HE! HE! HE! I may point at more than one group at once. When I go like, this [circles with hands], everybody laugh! When I go like this [swipe], fine. Ready! And begin….

[Hilarity ensues?]

Continuing with the poem, we’re told that success also means:
to win the respect of intelligent people

Why of “intelligent people,” I wonder. Perhaps because winning the respect of the unintelligent doesn’t mean much. Everywhere the inquiring mind turns today it meets with fakery and empty glamour. It’s been said of Hollywood, a town emblematic of our American fascination with contrived appearances, that once you strip from Hollywood all its fake glitter, you’ll find underneath real glitter….

Deep down, there’s nothing we want more than what’s real, yet it seems the real can often be hard to come by, whether in public or private life. Success, to be real, must go beyond appearance. It must stand up to the scrutiny of the intellect, our own and others.

Speaking of intellectual scrutiny, I would be falling down on the job if I were to point out that the Spring 2000 Emerson Society Papers include an entry by Joel Myerson entitled, “Emerson’s ‘Success’—Actually It’s Not.” In the paper, he claims the poem was mistakenly attributed to Emerson because some of his writing appears in close proximity to a poem by Bessie Stanley. Here’s Bessie Stanley’s poem:

He has achieved success
    who has lived well,
    laughed often, and loved much;
who has enjoyed the trust of pure women,
    the respect of intelligent men
    and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who has left the world better than he found it
    whether by an improved poppy,
    a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty
    or failed to express it;
who has always looked for the best in others
    and given them the best he had;
whose life was an inspiration;
whose memory a benediction.

It seems that the version Robin Stein suggested I preach about, attributed to Emerson, may have evolved over time, with many loving retellings and rewritings, from the one by Bessie Stanley. If so, its authority lies not in the personality of Emerson, but in the sentiments of the poem itself, which has spoken powerfully to several generations. Thanks to Robin for having brought it to my and our attention.

To continue, we read that success is also to win:
… the affection of children;

If the respect of intelligent people is success passed through the fire of the mind, the affection of children is success splashing in the water of the heart. Children generally have a great capacity for trust. They also have uncanny abilities to see into adult motivations. To win the affection of children is to become, in a sense, a child for a moment again, while never losing our hard-earned adult maturity. Often that maturity, without which real success is impossible, comes through trying times. The poem goes on that success is:
to earn the appreciation of honest critics / and endure the betrayal of false friends;

In Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods, Little Red Riding Hood sings a song about her experience with the Big Bad Wolf. One memorable line goes, “nice is different than good.” To listen with the ear inside the ear is to hear success calling through words that can be hard to hear, words from those who care enough to call us to our best selves. Honest appreciation and honest criticism are quite different from the false flattery that betrays in and of itself.

Success is:
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;

Sometimes, this part takes a long time. You can walk down the same city block a hundred times without finding all the beauty in it, never mind the beauty of a tranquil lake or awesome peak.

To find the best in others, and in ourselves, can take even longer. After all, our good emerges with time. It’s mixed with the bad we do to ourselves and others. But as we transform ourselves, one step at a time, the beauty becomes apparent. Poet Maya Angelou writes about this inner beauty, this real success, in simple, powerful language. She writes,

Money is very important and should not be denied or scorned. It's very important. It is not, however, a measure of success. Success is always internal, but what money does is afford the person who has it the chance to be generous to herself and others.

Success is internal, being able to look in the mirror when you brush your teeth and like what you see, and not drop your eyes. Liking yourself, and liking the person you want to be and liking the person you're trying to become. And that is it. That puts you at ease in any company. Whether you're black in white company, or white in black company, you're at ease. Christian with Jews at ease, because you know your heart and you know how you feel. That is true success.

Returning to our poem, success is:
to leave the world a bit better, / whether by a healthy child,/ a garden patch / or a redeemed social condition;

Today at the Society we’ve been celebrating our success together, not just as measured by our accomplishments this year but by our hopes for the future. Ultimately, it’s not what we do that lasts, but who we become by doing it. True success is discovering who you really are. It’s following your bliss, growing your soul, discovering your true will, and the will of the Highest for you.

Don’t be disturbed too much if you find your own type of success is not seen as success by the crowd. I remember a moving story I heard many years ago from Professor Tony Campolo, a lecturer I think Emerson would have been proud of. Campolo said,

[A] friend and I were in graduate school together. He went on to teach at Trenton State University and I went to teach at Eastern College. After teaching at Trenton State for about three weeks, he walked into the dean's office and said, “I'm not coming back tomorrow. I'm quitting this job. I thought you should know.”
The dean said, “You can't walk out on a teaching position in the middle of the semester.”
My friend responded, “Watch me!”
Later his mother telephoned me and said, “Tony, you have to go and talk to Charlie. He quit his job. He's a Ph.D. in English literature and if he doesn't teach, what can he possibly do?” Now, I have to admit, that is a good question. What do you do with a Ph.D. in English if you don't teach?
So I hunted him up. I found him living in an attic apartment in Hamilton Square, N.J. I've got to admit I liked the apartment. He had travel posters on his walls, shelves and shelves of books, a stereo; he had the whole “with it” scene. As I walked into the apartment he said, “Sit down, man. Sit down.” So I sat down-in one of those beanbag chairs. Did you ever sit in one of those things? It was like a giant amoeba. That chair threatened to devour me right on the spot.
As I sat down in that chair, half-consumed and half-digested, he looked at me with a smile and said, “I quit, Tony. I quit.”
I said, “I know you quit, Charlie. Why did you quit?”
He said, “I can't teach, man. I can't teach those people. Every time I walked into that class and gave a lecture, I died a little.”
Now I can understand that. I'm a teacher. I know what it is to go to class and share truth. Truth! Real Truth! Truth wrenched from existential suffering! Truth gleaned from the pains of human existence! And after I shared Truth with my students, after I've let every nerve and sinew tingle with the excitement of grappling with the ultimate Truth, some kid on the last row raises his hand and asks, “Do we have to know this for the final?” And I die a little bit.
So I empathized with Charlie. I understood him. And it wasn't long before I realized that I couldn't dissuade him from his decision to give up teaching. Finally, I said, “What are you doing now? How are you feeding yourself?”
He said, “I'm a mailman.”
I said, “That's terrific. A Ph.D. Mailman.”
He shot back, “There aren't too many of us!”
I couldn't change his mind, so I came back with the old Protestant work ethic thing. I said, “Charlie, if you're gonna be a mailman, be the best mailman you can be.”
He looked at me with a silly grin and said, “I'm a lousy mailman.”
I asked, “What do you mean, you're a lousy mailman?”
He answered, “Everybody else gets the mail delivered by one o'clock, I never get back until five-thirty or six.”
What takes you so long?” I wanted to know.
He said, “I visit! That's why it takes so long. You wouldn't believe how many people on my route never got visited until I became a mailman. But I've got this problem, I can't sleep at nights.”
I asked, “Why can't you sleep?”
He said, “Who can sleep after drinking twenty cups of coffee?”
I began to get the image of this mailman on the job. He was no ordinary mailman. I could picture him going from door to door and at each home giving more than the mail. I could see him visiting solitary widows, counseling troubled teenagers, joking with lonely old men. I could see him delivering the mail in a way that was revolutionary for the people of his route.
He's the only mailman I know that on his birthday, the people on his route get together, hire out a gym, and throw a party for him.

The type of success Campolo speaks about in his parable of the Ph.D. mailman comes in ways we can never quantify. I’m often amazed at the many ways we care for each other and our congregation. Real success is it’s own reward. The poem concludes:
to know even one life has breathed easier / because you have lived. / This is to have succeeded.

I’ll conclude with the words of Henry David Thoreau: “Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let us listen for the drummer that calls us, be she ever so distant or so near….