Very often we tell ourselves that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be defined by our failures and when we fall short. But not as often do we tell ourselves we shouldn't let our identities be defined by our accomplishments, like salaries, GPAs, number of educational degrees, and GPA.

At the core of defining ourselves through accomplishments is a quick-fix, band-aid culture that prioritizes results and productivity in the now rather than investing in the long-term future. And our accomplishments fill us up - for a little bit. It would be wholly unwise to tell an undergrad to not study for their exam the next morning after procrastinating for it the entire semester, but the problem with defining ourselves by our quantitative accomplishments is that it will always be relative. At the core of us doing well means we have to look at the next person doing a little worse to feel pride or, conversely, looking at the person doing a little better to feel shame.

Allowing ourselves to be defined by accomplishments fails to take into account how much of our success is contingent on being a part of a whole community, all in this game of life together. We buy into hustle culture's false premises that there's only a limited amount of success in the world to go around, that for one person to rise, someone else has to be brought down. And we're not wrong. What's wrong is how we're defining our success, as something that is immediate and can be seen, rather than the qualitative relationships we build with people and the meaning behind how our work impacts others.

Band-aids and quick-fixes are there to get us to the next step, but the danger in allowing ourselves to be defined by our accomplishments when they're good is that we also dig a hole when our accomplishments aren't so good and get stuck in the pits of despair. Think about how terribly you felt the last time you failed an exam, or when you were unemployed. And then think about how difficult it was to bounce back because of the shame that accompanied those times where we couldn't achieve.

But it is easy for me to sit here and preach and urge us not to be defined by quantitative success when there's so much pressure on all of us, so much at stake. Whether that means expectations from our parents and loved ones, or the pressure to take care of our kids and significant others, sometimes our focus on quantitative accomplishments is a survival mechanism we've adopted, a natural inclination. It would be folly to tell a homeless person surviving day-to-day to look to the future when the present looks so bleak. And so, a large part of what I'm telling you now is folly.

This, however, is only anecdotal evidence from my own life: when I stopped focusing on my accomplishments so much, I stopped pushing unnaturally and let it all come as God willed it. Sometimes I accomplished a lot more, and sometimes I didn't, but by not buying into the story that my accomplishments defined me, neither of those phased me. It allowed me to be was more malleable to adapt and change among chaotic and rapidly changing circumstances, because I was not my circumstances or accomplishments, and I didn't have to prove myself because of all the love I had already received from God.

By letting accomplishments define us, we're giving external circumstances that we only influence and don't control have more power over us than God has over us, or that we have over ourselves. Why ascribe our circumstances this much power?