Results vs. Relationships

“Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.”

– Thomas Merton

The longer we live the more doubts seem to crowd our mind. In the second half of life many people begin to question nearly everything they have achieved. Maybe I should have made a different move, or perhaps I should not have taken a certain stand. We suffer to achieve and at the end of the day, we may not have really achieved what we intended. Merton tells us not to depend on the hope of results. That concept is so antithetical to our culture. We live for results, we work for results, and our results make us who we are. The thought is to turn away from results to relationship.

Lives that are totally dependent on results never achieve happiness and satisfaction. Such lives are wrought with competition and envy at every turn. Our culture is full of people who are dependent on drugs, legal and illegal, to get through the day. So many of these heavy burdens would be lifted if we only stopped long enough to discover the reality of personal relationship.

Many a person having failed in the results column of their lives discover they have won in the personal relationships they have built. The sad reality of many lives is that they are so busy trying to achieve the acceptable result that they neglect their relationships. Careers thrive while marriages fall apart due to neglect or unintended abuse. A sad commentary on our society is that so many people do not realize the importance of individual relationships until the second half of our lives. Young adults who discover this secret early in life live happier and more productive lives.

Prayer

Lord help me to realize that my results do not bring me hope but my relationships deliver joy. Guide me this day to treasure those whom you have placed in my life. Turn my goal from what I can achieve to how I can love others. In loving others I can have the greatest results. Lord allow me to begin that love with love for You.

Amen