Comments (0)Tipping Scales Of Success
October 16, 2009Rabbi Jason Klein
Special to the Jewish Times
Now that the High Holidays have passed we begin to evaluate our success during the rest of the year. How do we evaluate success? Sometimes I think we default to quantitative measurements. What is our GPA? How much money are we making? How many pounds did we gain? Lose? How much influence do we have? How many friends have we made? I want to focus on qualitative measurements instead.
The American Heritage Dictionary definition of “successful” stresses outcomes. The example was “a successful heart transplant.” That was not enough information for me. What is a successful heart transplant? Perhaps success is when a 75-year-old with a new heart lives to 120? What about a 30-year-old living to a ripe old age or better quality of life? Or, as one might hear a surgeon quip, can the surgery itself be a great success — each incision, repair and suture perfect — even if the patient were to die on the operating table?
Sometimes in Jewish communities we raise a child to learn her tradition by rote —by heart but not from the heart — so that though she may “perform” well as a bat mitzvah, her disconnect from Judaism, from her role in the Jewish community, may discredit what seems like a success from the outside.
If “successful” is about outcomes, then we would do well to identify which outcomes we are assessing. We have heard this past year of “successful” businessmen revealing just how little they succeed in their responsibilities for others and other stories of people who seem to have everything still wanting to end their lives; perhaps in some cases what appears to outsiders as evidence of their success could be evidence of a deep-seated conflict.
Educators speak of goals and of objectives; it is useful to understand the difference. Goals are broad accomplishments while objectives are specific ways to measure what has changed, what a student has learned. We can use this model to evaluate success in our own lives. If my goals include feeling physically healthy and feeling better about myself, then my objectives might include eating more healthy foods, decrease in weight, increase in exercise and improvement in self-image. Maybe the tsuris (worries) starts when I confuse these objectives with the greater goal. If I plan just on losing weight, I will not be successful. “Losing weight” is a goal unto itself, but it may be a piece of a larger puzzle, a broader goal.
The same is true when we think of grades, power, money, fame. None of these things is meaningful unto itself, but each of them may be a measurable objective to reach a larger goal. If our larger goal is making sure that we can always provide for ourselves, then saving wisely, investing wisely, and not living beyond our means may be objectives on a path toward that goal.
When power, when money, when fame, or when beauty become ends unto themselves, then we have separated ourselves from our values sufficiently to become corrupted by these things.
Maybe success is not only about identifying a goal and striving for it, but also about knowing our limits — knowing when to say no and when to ask for help. I have heard people say “God does not give you more than you can handle,” but I don’t buy it. I do believe that we have to make the best of whatever happens to us, to be uplifted in the bad times, that gam zeh ya’avor, this too will pass, and to be humbled at the happy times, gam zeh ya’avor, this too will pass.
But we also have to know when to ask for help — from our partner, another family member, a friend, a therapist, or sometimes a stranger. Sometimes it seems easier to steep ourselves in our own despair than to share it with others — to really deal with each other in the world — but this risks causing more harm than good in the long run.
The Hebrew word for success is connected to the word that describes a platter, tzalachat. An effective platter allows food to move across a table by supporting the food but not being too heavy. We take a helping from the platter with an awareness that we are sharing with others and are careful about how much we consume, give to others and throw away. We are aware that we must pass the plate in order to have it passed to us, too.
Gam zeh ya’avor.
Rabbi Jason Klein is the director of UMBC Hillel and a member of the Baltimore Board of Rabbis. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the BBR or its members.