Bowing to the god of Success- Again.

(Just a note: I wrote this a few weeks ago, but didn’t finish polishing it up until today. My daughter is already back in school, settling into her senior year. The parental angst that I describe here, though? Sadly, still an issue.)

Who wouldn’t want to live here? Cabot House, one of Harvard’s undergraduate residential houses

Today, I am feeling bad because we didn’t sign my daughter up for a summer program at a prestigious university.  Honestly, I never even considered it. The flyers for these summer experiences started arriving in the mail last winter. The programs claim to combine academic enrichment, fun, and the opportunity for soon to be high school seniors to spend time on a college campus. They get to stay in the dorms, eat in the dining halls, and meet teens from around the country. The flyers were enticing, but after a quick glance at the cost, we recycled them.  I didn’t think any more about it.

Lately, though, she’s been seeing photos on social media of her friends enjoying some of these programs. They have flown off to Johns Hopkins, UCSD, and American University in Washington, DC. In these pictures, they are beaming with their new best friends. They love the schools and are having so much fun!  I confess that I am jealous for her. I wish she could be there, too.  I wish we had extra money to invest in a summer college experience for her.

Part of me knows that participation in these programs does not guarantee admission to a selective university. In fact, I’ve heard that all it does is tell admissions officers is that your family  doesn’t need financial aid.

There’s something about all this, though, that knocks me right out of my contemplative mindset.  Faster than you can see “Father Keating,”  I am bowing to the god of success.  Because success is the goal for her, right?  It is the path to happiness, the path to a good life. I want everything that it promises her. I want her to get accepted by one of those prestigious universities, preferably with a big fat merit scholarship so we could actually afford it.  I want her college years to be golden, full of fun times and new friendships and great grades and close relationships with faculty mentors who beg her to join them in their amazing research projects. I want her to graduate from that fancy school without any student loans and score a high paying, important job right at graduation.  So what if graduating from a prestigious college is no guarantee of a good life.  When I am worshipping the god of success, I figure that it can’t hurt anything so why not give it a shot?

The problem with this?

Well. You probably already know: the success god lies.

These dreams of mine, the crazy ones that paint how her life would look if she were at the “best” college? They lie, too. They don’t love my daughter. They seek to capture her and control her and lock her in a prison of ego.

Which is not to say that it would automatically be a terrible thing for her to be admitted to one of those schools. And it wouldn’t be bad for her to have a wonderful college experience. The problem comes when I hold that dream tightly and trust it for her happiness. Or when I think I know how that should look, how it must look. Or when I start worrying about what will become of her and her college decision process, and stress about how it will all work out in this year of so much change and possibility.

I just need to breathe. And trust.  She is OK, and she will be OK, and nothing has been ruined for her because she did not go to that summer program.  And all will be well, no matter which school she ultimately attends.   She has a vocation, a calling, and she will walk her own path with obstacles and dark spots, but it will be hers, and it will be beautiful.  Frederick Buechner defines vocation as the place where your deep joy and the world’s deep need meet. That’s always been my dream for her:  I want her to find work that she loves that helps this broken world. More importantly, I want her to know that she is deeply loved, always loved, and that her school and grades and honors and accolades have nothing to do with that.

This is what I believe.  I confess, though, that it doesn’t take much for me to forget, to look up and realize that I am down on my knees again, worshipping the god of worldly success.  I am so easily hooked by its promises. I am still breaking free myself.