Sarah, I’m having one of those nights where it feels like I’m not enough. Like I’m not getting anything accomplished, like nothing I will do will ever be enough or be worth anything? What am I supposed to do? Try harder? Lmao sure that’s all there is right?

notbecauseofvictories:

So, even in the midst of….probably the most significant crises of faith I’ve ever experienced, there is still a part of me that believes that after you die someone is going to sit down with you and ask about your life.

(I always picture it in one of those beige, nondescript rooms like a high school counselor’s office. There are bright, inoffensive posters on the wall. A glass dish of hard candy. The entity interrogating you wears a sweater.)

And they are going to sit down with you, and they are going to ask, SO HOW DID IT GO. THIS WHOLE….LIVING BUSINESS.

And you are going to have to tell the truth.

And the truth isn’t….did you make it. Where “it” is anything ranging from a lot of money to a lot of fame. The nice entity in the sweater doesn’t care about that. The nice entity in the sweater wants to know if you helped.

When you saw suffering, did you react in a way that was to minimize pain and bring relief? that came from a place of empathy? did you react our of love and justice, or out of showmanship, or worse—out of fear? did you give up what you could live without, to serve them?

If you were privileged enough to know other people, did you help carry their burdens where you could? did you meet them where they were, and forgive them their trespasses as you forgive yourself? did you rein in your own anxieties and fears, and let them blossom as only they can?

When you moved through the world—and wasn’t that beautiful, all that physics and chemistry and psychoanalytic geometry, really so impressive—did you leave the bits of it you touched better than you found them?

And at the end of the day, the nice entity in the sweater is going to know, whether you improved, helped, carried, served,….or whether you didn’t.

No other standard matters. Nothing else is important.

And….I mean, I didn’t choose my profession out of pure disinterest, I’m guilty as anyone of ignoring what I really and truly believe should be the guiding principle of my life. But I do believe it. And I think that there are millions upon billions of humans who fit the above criteria even though the historical record will never mention them by name.

That reminder keeps me humble, as I pursue more lofty goals—however  prestigious, however notable, that entity in the sweater doesn’t give a fuck. All that matters is: did I lessen suffering and unkindness where I could? was I gentle even when I could have reacted with violence? and did I help others flourish, even when I wasn’t sure it would help me grow at all?

Every other goddamn thing is secondary.