Success, as it defined by our culture, is simply a set of rules that seem to offer the perks of success, money, accolades, high regard of those those fellow men. There is a truer self, I have noticed. Philosopher Charles Taylor wrote in Sources of the Self, 

“The issue of our condition can never be exhausted for us by what we are, because we are always also changing and becoming.” 

Taylor

This brings me some comfort. Perhaps I am not the only one being pulled in a direction of that truer self. We hear a many voices, many platitudes, even, of encouragement to “become who you were meant to be.” I suppose such a destination and final stopping place is also comforting but I also suppose it doesn’t really exits. I try to follow Mr. Taylor’s notion that we are always in the state of change and becoming.

This can be a little more difficult to accept, given the other promise–even though it is false in its assumption that there is a destination to which I am entitled. For this I find comfort in Thomas Merton, the monk, mystic, and activist, who wrote in his journal, that is to say, to himself:

“It seems to me that I have greater peace… when I am not ‘trying to be contemplative,’ or trying to be anything special, but simply orienting my life fully and completely towards what seems to be required of a man like me at a time like this.”

Merton

This is a grave paradox, one of life as change vs the promises of success. Success is very important to our society, to our innovative nature, to our creativity, and even to our economic health. I would not throw out either model. I just know that the model of success, which is likely to bring me a level of satisfaction and pride, will is not likely to bring me much happiness. I need the model of change for that. I love the idea of growth and becoming a new man each day. This, in turn, will not bring me success, which I need equally as much. But integrated, the two models certainly make me a better man as it relates to issues of my success.

Time will pass, but now lasts forever. Thinking about now and what kind of man I want to be at a moment like this has to take precedence, if my truer self is to be continually born.