This past Sunday, I learned about the vice of vainglory.
Vainglory is the inordinate pride of oneself or one’s own achievement.
For those that do not know me very well, I have always been one to achieve one accolade after another. I received my Bachelors in English literature at the age of 21 and my Masters of Education with a single subject credential in English at the age of 23, and I sank a full time job prior to finishing school. I got married at the age of 21. I wrote a book and got it published at the age of 25. In high school, I was the captain of my volleyball team. I was an honors student. I took AP classes. I was the secretary for ASB. I made varsity for all the sports that I participated in high school. I became a minister at my church. I am now the English department chair at the school I work for. This is not a list to toot my own horn rather evidence of this drive “to achieve and do” that has driven my life since I could remember.
Some would classify me as a 3 on the enneagram which is an achiever. I have been called by a co-worker a workaholic, and instead of denying it, I identified with it. This was the scary reality that I lived in a few years ago, achieving one accolade after another, one more to-do item marked off the list, from one dream to the next.
I have had an unhealthy drive and crave for success and ambition at a very young age. I know all ambition isn’t bad, wrong, or broken because it has driven me to strive for excellence in everything that I have set my mind to, but there has been times that I have swung too far on this pendulum where it became “selfish ambition”. I felt like I was that hamster on the wheel that needed to leave people’s jaws dropped in accolades and achievements. I wanted to keep and continue the “wow” factor, the novelty, but as the rat race left me fatigued, tired, and drained, I found that my self-worth fluctuated based on people’s approval, recognition, applause, and praise.
Even now being 3 years from graduate school, life has slowed down a bit, but I am seeing how this unhealthy imbalance can creep into my life very quickly even in my own writing. There is this unhealthy drive that likes to overtake my creativity forging and forcing ground-break and life-change through the medium and vehicle of my words. I am learning that vainglory constantly chooses self-glory and gluttony over honesty and sobriety.
I desire to write from a greater place of honesty, and to be honest, trying to live in a way to satisfy, entertain, and woo others is exhausting. Seeing whether I get more likes on certain posts and letting it weigh my self-worth is not a healthy reality to live in. I desire and I am choosing honesty over niceness and entertainment. I am choosing ambition over selfish-ambition for the sake of bringing glory to the One who is the definition of glorious and where my self-value can rest assured, secure, and whole.
Something that my fitness trainer, Autumn Calabrese said the other day was this:
“Do what you are doing”.
This hit home for me because as an “achiever”, I get a buzz accomplishing various things. I am addicted to productivity and killing as many birds with one stone, draining more minutes than an hour can offer, but I am only human. I am not superwoman or invincible. I am frail, and I am not perfect. Yes, I desire to do things with excellence, but I am not a human-doing, I am a human-being.
This week, I encourage you to “do what you are doing” whole-heartedly, without strings attached, not somewhere else.
Today on this glorious Monday, I was able to wake up this morning at 5:05 am and get my 58 minute workout in, and to be honest, that extra hour of sleep was very attractive, but something in me shifted. I chose to be all in and all present to the activity that I committed myself to which was to my health and fitness. I was able to get my workout in, and I chose to be 100% in it, doing each move to the best of my ability and guess what that hour went quicker, and I actually enjoyed it instead of counting down the minutes.
After my workout, my morning getting-ready routine began, and I chose to be all in it, enjoying the process of showering off the sweat and pampering myself with my make-up routine.
I chose to see the greenery and blooming flowers that currently enraptures Diamond Bar as I drove to work. I chose to get off the hamster wheel of doing, and I chose to engage in the beauty of God’s excellence and glory.
There is so much glory in the sacred and still moments only if we choose to embrace to “do what we are doing”.
Drink and really taste the coffee that you are having this morning.
Smell and really see the flowers that are blooming all around you.
Talk and really connect with the people that live alongside you.
Be and really love yourself, God, and others today.