On Success & Mission

No one can serve two masters. Either [she] will hate the one and love the other, or [she] will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

-Matthew 6:24, gender normative language replaced by me

I recently came to the terrifying realization that I don’t want to be an entrepreneur anymore.

For the longest time, I have crafted my life narrative so carefully. I greatly desired both inner and outer success, the type of life that was consistent with my beliefs, but also offered me the highest heights of success as measure by the world. In other words, I have been fighting a battle between conventional standards of success and the internal pull of mission for a long time now. And last week, I decided to stop fighting. I sent the email announcing that by the end of the summer, I am shutting the doors of my first-ever company. It’s over.

I made this decision for many reasons, but one of the main ones was that I want so badly to stop caring about what other people think of me. I’m pretty self-possessed, and my self-confidence levels are reasonably high, but I want to stop investing so much energy, time, and attention to how my life narrative presents itself to others. For me, the past few years have been an endless exercise in image management, not even for my own personal benefit, but largely because I have been insecure about how my pursuit of this internal journey of growth will square with other people’s expectations with what I am supposed to be doing with my life.

If you’ve been reading for awhile, you know that the break that I had with my plans to go to business school was literally life-redefining for me. It was the first conscious step I took towards the path of mission over success, at least as the world defines it. I haven’t yet regretted taking that step. My journey towards healing is no less real just because others can’t see it. At a very low point for me, a friend reminded me that it would cost me less emotional energy to give up trying to explain my rationale for my decisions than to just make them. To walk the path and let my footsteps be their own answer.

I want so badly to live the life that I need to live, the life that I have been called to live. Answering the questions that my heart yearns after. Writing without fear of judgment. Grappling with the real questions of life and sharing my struggles for the benefit of others and myself.

The questions I’m asking myself these days are: what would happen if I permanently set aside the nice, linear, neat, upwardly rising success story I have felt obligated to pursue my whole life? What would happen if I truly cared more about mission than success? I have been trying to serve two masters, getting more and more frustrated as I try to serve both worlds.

I want to have the courage to walk away from caring about success entirely. But it’s heady stuff. That world has given me praise, adulation, and even existential validation for so long. I loved being a student because it came naturally to me. It was the easiest thing ever, a paint-by-numbers painting, a connect-the-dots type of world. I knew exactly what I would get out of if if I invested myself into it.

And I don’t want that anymore.

In one sense, I have already made my choice. I choose to follow this convoluted path towards mission, towards not just becoming but being the writer I am. Now I must stop looking back over my shoulder at the path I’ve left behind, or risk turning into a pillar of salt.*

*Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt after she looks behind her as her family is running away from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19).