Beloved Loser: Seeing the Truth beyond “Success” and “Failure”

When a person has lived a life of trying to be other than who he is, a life of the deepest dishonesty and disconnection from reality, where practiced deception has become such a refined art that even those who are closest to the deceiver, including the deceiver himself, are convinced that the pretty façade, meticulously constructed over an entire lifetime, is a faithful representation of a beautiful interior, there remains within that person a tiny light of self-awareness that cannot, seemingly, be extinguished.

In my own case, the lack of authenticity was likely the result of being an unusually sensitive child who failed to please his stern and conservative father. I spent my life trying to win the approval of everyone, but especially authority figures—teachers, professors, doctors, priests—and in constant, desperate fear of rejection. My career and relationship choices were based on these shaky premises, so it is needless to say that such choices did not lead to happiness or peace of mind: the relationships were short and usually disastrous and the career choices resulted in 35 years of restless shuffling from one unfulfilling job to another.

A friend once bragged about me to a wise man of our acquaintance after a professor in graduate studies had written on a term paper I submitted that it was the best student work he had read during his tenure at the university. Without missing a beat, the wise man replied that such praise of my work was not surprising as I was a rather calculating individual; he had read me with absolute accuracy. In fact the topic of the paper I had selected was one that I knew to be dear to the heart of the professor, and I was familiar enough with his work to be able to construct the essay in a way that I reckoned would be pleasing to him. Moreover, I was skilled at aping the writing style of scholars in my field, so the paper appeared to be the product of a promising academic at the Master’s level.

I was, in truth, not especially interested in the topic of the paper. In fact, I was not really interested in the field I had chosen. I had chosen it for the prestige—the approval—it might bring me. I did well because I was smart, because I worked hard, but most of all because I had spent my entire adult life (I was by this time in my late thirties) learning how to be calculating. Once I had completed my degree I neither continued on to doctoral studies nor sought a career in the field I had chosen.

My relationships were characterized by futile attempts to be whoever I thought I should be in order to please my current boyfriend and by a concomitant fear that he would reject me (perhaps when he found out who I really was). One of the side-effects of my overpowering insecurity was a desire to make my boyfriend conform to an ideal that I had constructed rather than allowing him to be the person he really was. So I was constantly vacillating between fear of rejection and the impulse to reject and was actually proud of myself when I dumped a boyfriend for the first time. It goes without saying that most relationships were short-lived.

I knew that I was smart enough to succeed at whatever I tried to do and that I was a good person who would be a loving and loyal life partner for someone, yet I could not understand why I seemed to consistently fail both in career and in love, a pattern I remained trapped in for 35 years.

When I was fifty-five years old, after failing at a business venture I had no business even attempting and after terminating yet another relationship, I knew that I had to break free of this take-off/crash-and-burn cycle if I was ever to be happy. So I stepped off the treadmill and began to read—Eckhart Tolle, Henri Nouwen, Joseph Campbell, Anthony de Mello, and others—and to reflect on the life I had lived since I was a teenager.

In a series of powerful sermons entitled Life of the Beloved (which can be found on YouTube), by the late Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest who wrote numerous spiritually themed books, Nouwen states that our lives are generally governed by three false principles: we are what we do, we are what others think of us, and we are what we have. I have recognized that my life was ruled by a belief in these illusions, illusions that we have been indoctrinated to accept as truth by our parents, our teachers, our politicians, and by the media. A career filled with achievements, the approbation of the world, and abundant material goods are the hallmarks of success and the guarantee of happiness, so these are what we must constantly strive for.

But what if we do not succeed—if, for whatever reason or reasons, we fail to “reach our potential”? Perhaps one of our greatest fears is of being labelled “loser.” I certainly thought of myself as a loser after so many failed career moves and relationships. As Nouwen points out, these false principles that are the foundation of our ideas of success and failure lead to fear, violence, and depression because we suffer when we are unable to do what forms our identity, when others speak ill of us, or when we do not have what our neighbour has or we cannot possess what we covet.

Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth) suggests that we consider what we would do if everything we held precious—our home, our career, even our family—were suddenly taken from us and could not be recovered. What would we be left with? What would make life worth living for us? Henri Nouwen says that rather than being what we do, what others think of us, and what we have, we are in fact the beloved daughters and sons of God, that we were loved even before we began to take shape in our mother’s womb. Nouwen believes that it is this love that we need to hold on to, it is this love that will sustain us and keep us from fear and depression, it is this love that will bring us peace and happiness. The rest is illusion.

Another wise priest, the Jesuit Anthony De Mello, tells us that no one can say what happiness is, only what it is not, and it is not what we generally believe it to be. Only by effecting a radical change in how we think about life can we break free of the illusion of success and failure that society has created for us and in which it keeps us trapped. Joseph Campbell made a point of always advising his students to “follow your bliss” rather than to pursue the education and career that will lead to financial security, which in itself is a mirage. By recognizing and following our passion—our bliss—we will achieve a different kind of security, a security that is profoundly spiritual and that survives all the vicissitudes of our emotional and material lives. If our passion gives us a good living, helps us find a compatible partner, or brings us accolades from our peers, these can be considered collateral benefits. But we must always keep in mind that if we lose these benefits we are still the beloved child of God and we still hold the precious treasure of our bliss.

Some may scoff at the idea that God loves us as his children, but we only need to see a beautiful sunset, experience the fragrance of the blossoms on a lilac tree, or attend a Handel opera to know that “someone” out there loves us and that the simple yet powerful joy these “wonders” bring us surpass the pleasure we receive from worldly goods.

I have a new career: being who I really am. I have reached the entry level, which is the recognition that Henri Nouwen has asked us to achieve although I still have a tendency to slip back into the illusion. I have no money but I have bliss. As for relationships, my new partner loves me for who I am, so I don’t have to bother trying to impress him or be afraid that he’ll “find me out.” He is already the perfect partner for me, so I need not bother to try and force him into a mould.

Let us teach our children, and each other, a different meaning of “success.” Let us teach the world that we are not what we do, we are not what others think of us, and we are not what we have; we are the Beloved and our ultimate “success” lies in cultivating awareness of our beloved-ness and in sharing the love we receive—the love that is manifest throughout the universe—with our fellow human beings.

Photo Credit

Image (Father And Son) by jackpirate69 on Flickr – Some Rights Reserved

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