It seems universally true: we constantly strive for more. Satisfaction seems beyond our grasp. Getting off the treadmill of striving for MORE is difficult; even feels dangerous. Without making a decision about it, we connect our urge for more with our resistance to less.
It doesn’t take much reflection to realize that our acquisitive drives are not connected with our needs. It is as much, if not more, an issue of comparison and competition. The urge to have more than others, to be more than others is relentless. This may be an expression of original sin. Let’s center there.
We spend so much time seeking to prove ourselves. We have a passion to prove ourselves to others. Almost two centuries ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his essay, Self-Reliance. He expressed a truth perhaps more desperately needed to be heard today than ever. “I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there bedside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.”
The missing dynamic is awareness and acceptance of who we are. We spend so much time seeking to prove ourselves. Yet, when we really accept the acceptance of God, when His love and acceptance comes alive in our lives, we no longer have to prove ourselves to others. We can use our energy in developing our relationship to God, and our relationship to others as we keep alive our awareness of God’s love and affirmation as persons “in God’s image.”