This week’s QUOTE FOR STRESS:
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36
Actually being on that treadmill to worldly success can be extremely stressful. When you think you’ve finally arrived, the goal-posts change and that striving actually never stops. This is what stress and burnout are made of.
The other day I read a book review of NW by Zadie Smith (Time Magazine September 10, 2012, page 47) which gave a ‘secular’ take on this verse. The theme of the book is about the perils of upward mobility.
“In an age of massive wealth disparity, people are increasingly defined by their wealth or lack thereof, and the gulfs between them become correspondingly massive. They’re constantly urged to climb ladders, but having climbed them they discover that they’ve left irreplaceable parts of themselves behind. As Natalie (the main character) says of a contemporary who burned out, ‘She had been asked to pass the entirety of herself through a hole that would accept only part.’ “
Natalie discovers that you can’t go from one world to another, and still be you.
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” When we die, we can’t take our wealth with us. All we’ll have left is our soul so we better pay attention to our soul in this life-time!