This is to Have Succeeded by Rev. Michael McGee

This is to Have Succeeded by Rev. Michael McGee

        This is the season for graduations, isn't it? How many of you have been to a graduation ceremony of some kind this past month or are planning to go to one over the next few weeks? The other day as I was coming into the church I saw a little boy about five years old with his mother coming from the child care center here in our building, and he was wearing a graduation cap made from paper complete with a tassel, and the mother was telling him that now he can move his tassel to the other side of his cap. I didn't get to do that until I was 18 years old.

       Most of us participate in many graduations over our lifetime, as a graduate ourselves or a witness. This morning I would like to give all of you a diploma for graduating from the school of life. Though certainly your education is not over, I believe you deserve recognition as a successful person on your life journey, a success in your vocation, as a partner and parent, a spiritual seeker, and most important as a human being. This diploma is a diploma for all of the bridges you have crossed. It's a recognition that you are a successful, compassionate, mindful, generous, joyful, activists human being.

        Unfortunately I only have virtual diplomas to give you, but my question is, do you think you've earned it? Do you see yourself as a success? I ask myself that question from time to time. Am I a success as a minister of one of the largest, most dynamic churches in the Unitarian Universalist movement, having served congregations for over 35 years?

        Am I a success as a husband and father, having been married for over 40 years to an incredible woman and having four happy children together? You may be surprised that there are times when I would have difficulty accepting a diploma for being successful, and the reason is that I have this nasty habit of seeing what I haven't accomplished instead of what I have.

        Do you have that problem? Many of us do. Terry and I have a beautiful perennial garden, but often when I go out to enjoy it, do you know what I see? Yes, those darn weeds that keep popping up in the midst of all the beauty. When I catch myself doing that, I refocus my attention to the flowers – though I admit it's easier to do after I've jerked those nasty weeds out of the ground.

        This inability to recognize and affirm our successes is a result of thinking of success as perfection and thus unattainable. Being a successful minister is not enough; I want to be the perfect minister – even if there is no such thing. Being a successful parent or spouse is not enough; I want to have no flaws or failures. And yet the reality is that failure is the price we pay for success.

        Perhaps it would help to define what success means. That's the question asked by the song we heard this morning, “Seasons of Love,” – “525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year... how can you measure the life of a woman or man?” We tend to measure our lives by a series of what we call successes, but what does that mean? Hopefully it's more than enjoying the privileges of wealth and status.

        Ralph Waldo Emerson defines success well in these words: “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

        Another definition of success is to live out our potential, in our vocation, our family, and our spiritual lives. I love Malcolm Gladwell’s books, partly because he writes about being successful both professionally and personally. In “The Tipping Point” he suggests that we can be successful by spreading powerful ideas in much the same way as infectious diseases proliferate. In “Blink” he theorizes that we can be successful by trusting our gut instincts and snap judgments as being every bit as good as decisions made more methodically.

        In his most recent book, “Outliers” Gladwell tells us that, “There is something profoundly wrong with the way we look at success. We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.” But the reality is that individual fame and fortune is "grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances... [And] no one – not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses – ever makes it alone".

        This may seem obvious to some, and yet Gladwell makes it clear that we are unaware of many of the influences and limitations on us. One of the most memorial stories in “Outliers” is the “Ah-ha” moment by a mother at a boy's hockey game in Canada when she looked at the program and realized that most of the players were born in January, February, and March. Why on earth would there be such a strong correlation of birth-dates to hockey players? Is there really something to astrology after all?

        Thank goodness, no. The answer to the puzzle is that the eligibility cutoff in Canada for age-class hockey is January 1. So if a boy turns ten on January 2, he could be playing with boys who are six months younger, and so he tends to be bigger, stronger, and shines as a star. Because of his good performance, he will probably be chosen for the more advanced road team and given the best coaching, more time to practice and play, the challenges of being with other highly skilled boys, and the affirmations that feed his spirit. Since this process continues to lift up these winter babies, the result is that most of the professional hockey players in Canada are born in the winter months, and especially in January.

        This same natural selection happens in every sport where there is an eligibility cutoff, as well as in schools. Many parents hold their children back from entering kindergarden if they were born at the end of the calendar year, and studies show it's for good reason; the younger children in class do not get as much attention and opportunity, and thus tend to fall behind academically and socially.

        Just think of the lost potential: all of the children who simply because of their birthdate have either been given unwarranted advantages or denied future possibilities. The solution of course is simple: establish different leagues with different age requirements for sports, and for schools put children who were born in the same quarter of a year in class together. Not only would individuals be more successful but society would benefit substantially.

        But the dynamics of success and failure are more complex than this. Gladwell tells the story of Lewis Terman, a young professor of psychology at Stanford University, who made a study of the intellectually gifted his life work. The children he studied – called the Termites – had an average IQ of 140, and Terman tracked every aspect of their lives with an assumption that a high IQ would naturally lead to success.

        But the results of that study were a shock to Terman and many others. Though there were certainly some significant successes in his group – and these people were in the ninety-ninth percentile of the ninety-ninth percent – the majority had careers that were ordinary at best, and a surprising number could be considered failures. It was even shown that if you took a group of randomly selected children they would do almost as well as the super-intelligent kids.

        Why is that? The reason is that there are many more factors than IQ that go into being successful. For instance, children from upper or middle-class backgrounds are much more likely to succeed than those from impoverished ones because they learn the social skills and have the self-confidence that's necessary to succeed. The point of Gladwell’s book is that "Outliers are those who have been given opportunities, and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”

        An outlier is a truly exceptional individual who, in his field of expertise, is so superior that she defines her own category of success. Bill Gates is an outlier as are Steve Jobs of Apple, the scientists, Robert Oppenheimer, and the Beatles. What sets these giants apart from the rest of us is not mere talent, but the accident of birth, intelligence, family support, culture and timing, and just plain luck. Each one of them was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and to have opportunities not available to others. And each of them made the choice to use those opportunities to succeed. In fact, outliers need to put at least 10,000 hours into perfecting their vocation.

        Barack Obama could not have been elected president of the United States at any time before 2008. He could not have been president without George W. Bush paving the way for him by messing things up so badly. He was the right man at the right time, but he had to choose to be an Outlier, to use all of his advantages, as well as his disadvantages, to shake the world.

        We are inspired by these stories of success in the face of so many obstacles. How many of you have seen the video of Susan Boyle, the Scottish warbler, singing in the British talent show? It brought tears to my eyes so see this woman who has been anything but a success in the traditional sense thrill not only that audience but our world with her voice. I was also inspired by President Obama's choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, a Puerto Rican woman who grew up with so many disadvantages, and yet she has become one of the most important justices in our nation.

        Stories like this give great hope to those who suffer significant disadvantages in their lives, but the hope should not be that anyone can succeed against all odds, because they probably can't. The hope is that we have a better chance of succeeding IF we recognize and make use of the web of connections in our lives. Barack Obama recognizes that he could not have become president without the love and influence of his mother and grandmother. Susan Boyle had the support of her church and her mother and friends. Sonia Sotomayor credits her mother as being her life inspiration and her Puerto Rican heritage as giving her invaluable wisdom.

        And Malcolm Gladwell traces his success back to his great-great-great grandmother who was bought as a slave in Jamaica and married the white man who bought her, enabling her to escape from the doom of slavery. She also created a culture of possibility that was passed down through the generations and combined with fortunate events to enable Gladwell to get an excellent education and to become an Outlier himself.

         As Unitarian Universalists we affirm that we are all an inextricable part of the interdependent web of existence, but sometimes we forget how that web holds us up and supports us in our journey and how we need to do the same for others. The young people who we saw bridge over this morning to another stage of their lives have been provided a web of support and love that hopefully will enable them to grow and succeed, and each one of us is a part of that web.

         The tragedy of course is all of those who are not given the opportunities to succeed, who are denied possibilities because of when they were born, or their economic status, or the color of their skin, or their religion or nationality or different abilities. We celebrate those who do overcome such overwhelming odds, but we cannot close our eyes to those who are left behind depriving all of us of their talent and ability.

         May we continue to support the young people in our church as well as those children who are in Peace Camp, the tribal girls we support in India, the children of Beacon House, the youth of New Orleans, those young people we help through VOICE, and soon we will be asking for support for scholarships for girls in Guatemala. These are real ways you can and do give life-transforming opportunities to those who need them so badly. May we understand that to live a successful life is to help others to live out their full potential as human beings, so that we may all leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; knowing even one life has breathed easier because we have lived.

Yes, this is to have succeeded.

BENEDICTION

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.

- Rabindranath Tagore

• “Scientist, Academic, Woman, Person of Color, and UU,” by Shaida Johnston