Success, Again

SUN., MAR. 14, 1982, 6:18 AM
FARM, STUDY

You ask why, o son, and I reply, “Why not?” You do not have, within your mind and spirit, enough more to say about success to warrant an entire teaching. Ah, that’s when the challenge arises, for this teaching process validates itself best when you feel, truly, that there is no more to say. So… We shall proceed with what has the potential for being a successful lesson.

Success can be judged personally, and it can be judged communally. This means that you, an apparently individual human being, can judge… decide… feel success in relation to something you attempted. Last Thursday’s class out here around the table… was it successful? You did not plan it carefully (tediously) but you simply let the spirit lead. The afternoon was ideal, warm and sunny around the table, and you basically used stories as the way to learning. You felt that the class had been successful, in its conclusion… and you validated that judgment in offering it as an example at last evening’s dessert / study on stories. Another criterion of success, however, would be the feelings of those who made up the group. And, finally, if the use of a story to make a point was an objective you soon can test, in a limited way, the ability of each to write some short stories.

Shall We summarize that rather long, rambling discourse? Your feelings of success are important in judging, but so are the feelings of others… as well as their demonstration of capacities to apply what has been experienced.

In John Patrick’s business… he needs to feel success in accomplishing in a single, brief encounter… on up to meeting a longer term time table. Also he needs the judgment of others, those directly involved and those merely observing but interested, that he is accomplishing, and, lastly, the learners must be emulating him in bringing in new potential workers… and in selling some products. Success is subjective, involving self and others, and it also can be objectified in some respects.

The complicating factor, of course, is the endless overlapping of and “competition between” elements to be judged. To be judged successful in carrying out and through this meditation you must write legibly and in understandable style and syntax, and you must complete three pages in about an hour’s time. But as you are working toward success in this venture you are being less successful as a husband, for it would please and gratify Lenore if she would wake up with you beside her. You also are less successful as a feeder of animals, as an informed citizen, and as writer of important letters… because you are doing this.