Both Servant and Master

For the sake of who I am to become, I will sacrifice who I am now.Anonymous

Toddlers are not interested in anything other than what they want. They cry and throw a fit when their will is not met. Many adults never truly grow out of being a toddler. As we grow and put on faux maturity, the toddler-like drama fades, but the underlying urges remain — we hate sacrifice. Be it for others or for ourselves, forsaking the now for the future does not seem ideal or comfortable. Although it is not preferable at first glance, to live a life of meaning takes copious amounts of sacrifice. What is easier: to sacrifice now in the name of long-term meaning, or to follow every hedonic whim?

Are we going to live for ourselves, or take on the burden of responsibility? When we live for ourselves, we become miserable, anxious, and cynical, and in some cases it can result in severe nihilism. Why? The self is a poor and unstable object of devotion. It is both the one making the demands and the one who must satisfy them. That arrangement is internally contradictory. When we live to fulfill our degenerate fleshly appetites, we are both the servant and the master. We walk through life doing hardly anything truly productive. All we do is consume what we see fit, and it is never enough. It will never be enough.

Hedonism is not a productive aim for our lives — it is murdering our meaning. Instead of adding to our own dissatisfaction, we must then look to something else. The alternative to the lowest form of casual pleasure, hedonism, is valued responsibility. Just as living for comfort and gratification brings a dissolution of meaning, living a life of sacrifice to responsibility and a higher aim gives substance to meaning and purpose. We can live a life of purpose. We can become more than we could ever become if we play the unenviable role of servant and master.

That brings up a pertinent question — to what are we submitting? What is the higher aim? It could be just doing the right things and being a good person. But in that framework you still define what good is. You are still trying to be master and servant by defining the good by which you live. We could dedicate ourselves solely to the service of others. That is a selfless aim, and needed for meaning, but it is not a complete strategy for meaning. Ultimately, we must submit to the only One who can bring meaning: God. We do that by taking responsibility for ourselves — the responsibility for the evil flesh of which we are made — and allowing Him to strip it from us. He defines good and gives a focused image of productive service.

The highest aim that we can orient ourselves to is the life that God would have us live. We cannot, and will not, be able to live out the adventure of our life until we come to the unavoidable conclusion that we must give it up. Each moment of our lives must be seen as a separate iteration of ourselves: our community of selves. This takes us from just us in this moment to thinking about what our current decisions will do for us down the road. What is the most optimal thing that we can do in this moment that pushes our future selves toward meaning? Being a servant to the highest Master is the best thing for the community of selves that extends into the future. We can never live a life of meaning until we are willing to sacrifice it all.