Be rooted in purpose,
or priorities are sure to get twisted.
I moved to Austin in August 2000 to attend The University of Texas and major in journalism; this piece of advice I remember, though not who gave it to me, about how to advance in the field: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I cringe now, and even more so because I took it at face value and did not question the meaning. At a meet-and-greet event for first-year students with journalism faculty, instead of asking questions and getting to know the professor, I tried to show what I knew by sharing the advice I had been given. Obviously it was a brief conversation.
Even well-meaning advice will fall flat or on dull ears if it doesn’t stir the sense of eternity in every heart. In my case, I found a way into the field and newspaper reporting by doing most any job available, but without ever considering how my work mattered or that it could. What stories would make a difference? What is the difference my work can make? But I did not know to ask those questions, so I wrote the stories I was told to.
This is how the system keeps churning; when we are only chasing work, we become cogs in an invisible wheel that drives us to have more without lifting us to be more. Greed isn’t an in-born trait, but it is the driving force that moves the wheel and breeds in us when we swallow capsule-sized advice based on the world’s claim that money buys happiness. To which Jesus says, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
In the end, it’s not about what you know or who you know, but what we give away and what we leave behind.
