We can only escape from the world by outgrowing the world. Death may take man out of the world but only wisdom can take the world out of the man. As long as the human being is obsessed by worldliness, he will suffer from the karmic consequences of false allegiances. When, however, worldliness is transmuted into spiritual integrity he is free, even though he still dwells physically among worldly things.
(Manly P. Hall)
In the investment business I am in there are few heroes. The ones who spectacularly beat their benchmarks and their competition over the decades are the exceptions and merely there to show the rest the mission impossible. Most forget that for every success story there are hundreds of people and processes that tried hard but eventually failed. I have realized after years of trying my best as a financial strategist that the success or failure of my endeavor is out of my hands. All I can do is to build the best investment process there is and leave the rest in the capable hands of a higher authority.
The point of our spiritual path is not to 'succeed'; the point is to get stuff out of our system. Sure, when we fail the resentment will stay with us. On the other side of the coin, though, success breeds arrogance. For us spiritual travelers too much winning is also not good. No, our mission is just to get the stuff completely out of our system. No hard feelings and no lingering arrogance. Just done with. Rumor has it that when one of our outgoing CEOs left the building on his last day of work he jumped into the air full of joy and excitement when he thought that no-one was watching. That's the way to go!
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