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6 Chapter Six: Don’t cast a shadow on yourself either

Achieving your life’s dream brings with it a curse: what do you do with the rest of your life that can possibly measure up? There are movies that explore potential consequences of success (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Eureka, among others). There are articles on the challenges facing pro athletes upon retirement, once the childhood dream has run its course and they go from being sought after stars to being “regular” people: Divorce and bankruptcy rates soar in the first years of retirement as they struggle to discover who they are now. A star among stars, Michael Jordan put it bluntly: “Now, when you get into the Hall of Fame, what else is there to do?” (Taken from Michael Jordan: Life After Glory by Mitch Albom.)

But the phenomenon is not restricted to pro athletes. Consider ex-presidents (Clinton, Bush, and Obama) who have exhausted term limits and can never again be “president of the United States”. Neither is it restricted to the rich and famous. Consider someone achieving the dream of finishing high school…or college…or graduate school…or getting the big job…or retiring. Or parents dealing with empty nests. It is an issue for anyone setting a big goal and then achieving it: what comes next? And conclusive failure in a major project or goal can have a similar effect, leaving you without a plan and without the confidence to start again.

The answer to both challenges lies in your identity. It is easy to become so committed to the dream, the quest, the mission, that you have a hard time separating yourself from it—it becomes your identity. When it is over, whether through success or failure, it can seem like your reason for living is over. If the dream was attained, it is easy to make the rest of your life about “the good old days,” living in the past, which eclipses your potential—and your responsibilities—in the present and future. If you failed to attain your dream it can seem like all is lost and you are incapable of any future success. You must seek to honor the past (both the successes and the failures), learn all you can from it, and commit yourself to making the most of whatever comes next. Otherwise, you will realize too late that you only lived a part of your life and missed many things that, while perhaps less thrilling than achievement of “the dream,” may actually have been much more fulfilling.

The solution begins before the success or failure. It comes from not identifying the goal as you. It comes from not letting yourself expect that the goal—and the lifestyle associated with it—will always be there. It comes from remembering that you always were, are, and will be a “regular” person. It comes from continually remembering that neither you, nor your goal, is God.

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