We’re all supposed to tackle the world, right? And not stop until, like Scarface, we see a big blimp flying over us flashing in neon lights: “The World is Yours.” But we must be careful that we don’t end up like Scarface in the end … lying face down in a pool of his own blood. And in our case, the only difference will be that instead of the blood being Hollywood Ketchup, it will be the blood of our own deep suffering.
Defining Success
We must be extremely careful, for how we define success will make or break us. Scarface’s definition of success, his M.O.L.E., was a fast highway that ultimately led to suffering and death. The scene towards the end of the film, in which Scarface is sitting in a giant bathtub in a mammoth overdone room with an elephantine TV complaining about the world he had made, sums it all up: those closest to him leave him suddenly sadly soaking all alone in the seductive bubbles of his blinding book of success.
The problem comes when we treat success as an End-in-Itself … as if it is a final destination … some vacation spot to where we long to vanish forever. However, the suffering begins once we get there and ask ourselves: “Now what?” Then we immediately begin suffering from Nowhatitus, a devilishly debilitating condition, in which we embark on a self-destructive path of restlessness as we slide down a bottomless pit of stress, the whole time singing, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.
The Cure to NowhatitusÂ
The only way out of the pit is to stop singing that damned song! We have to write a new song about our own journey, the path that we walk, not to reach a destination, but simply for the joy of walking, the joy of contributing to the world in the way in which we contribute best. The Nowhatitus is cured because we trade the End-in-Itself, something unreachable outside ourselves, for the Being-in-Itself, something that is always reached … was always there. We become like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz being told that she always had the way home all along: the journey of our “I” is the ruby red slippers that were always on our feet.
Along the Being-in-Itself journey there will be many failures, but they are just windows into lands of new opportunities to journey better. There will also be milestones and encouraging achievements along the way, but once we have reflected, celebrated, and rested, we have to journey on.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
When we choose the tinsel town of success, we have stopped journeying … we have sold our “I” for some “Me” society has pawned off on us. We have traded our most precious heirloom for a night on the town belting the Rolling Stones incessantly until we grow hoarse and start avidly eying the shiny megaphone in the shopwindow.
Don’t do it. You deserve more than success.
You deserve you.
Yours in the infinite joy of the “I,”
Phoenix.