Egoic Treadmill - No. 50
One of my mentors, Larry Mills, says, “There's never enough of anything that almost works.”
When John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in the world, was asked “How much is enough?” He said, "Just a little bit more.” What is it that leads a man who has everything he could ever want to want a little bit more? Clearly, more money wouldn't have enabled him to buy anything that he couldn't buy. More power wouldn't allow him to influence anything he couldn't already influence. He was already as famous as he could be. So what did Rockefeller have to gain by pursuing more? I think in order to understand the answer to that question, we have to recognize that what he was chasing wasn't really, money, fame or power. I think what he was chasing was himself and a deep unconscious desire for wholeness. If he had felt at peace, would he have still wanted more? If he had felt like he had enough and was enough, would he have lived differently?
It's easy to use someone like Rockefeller as an example, but what he represents in an extreme way is the same thing we all deal with in life. We believe that more of something is going to satisfy the lack that we feel in our hearts and minds. For some of us, it's more success, or more love and respect from people, and for others, it's adventure, excitement, or pleasure. It is the rare person who is not subconsciously pursuing a little bit more of something with the belief that it will somehow be enough or make them enough.
The real thing that we are pursuing is a feeling of wholeness. We want to feel like we are enough and that we have enough. No amount of affirmation, success and material possessions can make a person feel complete. No amount of material possessions can ever make you feel like you are enough. Therefore, what you are pursuing is the missing pieces that will make you feel complete. I call this the Egoic treadmill. We are pursuing what we think we want and think we need so that we can feel whole, so that we can finally feel like we are enough.
The Egoic Treadmill
Most people live their entire lives on the egoic treadmill. Every season of their life is marked by the pursuit of something new, something more. Maybe it’s love and acceptance, career or financial milestones, public recognition, or simply a sense of security in life. How many people have you met who are truly content in all areas of life?
We think we need to lose weight, move to a new house or new town, get better friends, impress our current friends, live up to our parents’ expectations of us, make our siblings proud, or get the approval of our neighbors. There are literally endless ways to be on the egoic treadmill. We could be pursuing fun vacations, or building businesses and ministries or organizing community projects, even helping those in need can be a manifestation of our egoic treadmill.
The big question we don’t realize we are asking is “Who would I be if I…?” Most people are deathly afraid that we might be who we fear we are, something less than, a failure, a loser. When we find wholeness, we stop being afraid of all of those things. When we feel whole, we know who we are and failure can’t change that. Friends and strangers who judge or reject us can’t change that. When we feel whole, we are no longer afraid of being less than. We are no longer looking for the missing pieces of ourselves. We know who we are, and when we know who we are, people’s opinions and life circumstances can’t change that.
The egoic treadmill is the result of looking for wholeness in the wrong places. Our true identity is only found through a spiritual journey, because true identity is not the result of external success or affirmation; it is the result of internal transformation. Through death and rebirth, we discover more of our true identity. The more we step into that identity, the less we look to external sources for wholeness. We begin to feel whole, so we don’t need things or accomplishments to complete us. Suddenly, a new car, a bigger house, a promotion, social approval, and creature comforts start to be seen for what they are, something empty of true value.
When we hop off the egoic treadmill, we start pursuing things with real, lasting, and eternal value. Connection to God becomes the central focus of our lives, caring for and loving others becomes far more important to us than gratifying our own desires. The appeal of shiny objects begins to lessen and eventually disappears. We start to see things in terms of their utility, and instead of interpreting them by what we think they say about us. A house becomes a place to live and not a status indicator, a job becomes a source of income, not a statement about our value and accomplishment. Things like sex, good food, and beautiful things become gifts to enjoy instead of things we think we need to make our lives complete.
Pursuing Self
The egoic treadmill is ultimately the pursuit of self. We are chasing what we think we want and what we think we need under the illusion that it will finally bring us the wholeness and sense of identity that we long for. The only way to hop off the egoic treadmill is to die to who we think we are and what we think we want. In doing this, we admit that we don’t know who we are and that all the things we think will make us complete are empty lies. We stop chasing more of everything and accept that there is never enough of anything that almost works. We accept that there is only one way to become whole, to be reborn from within. We accept that peace isn’t a byproduct of a certain-sized bank account or social status; it’s a result of abiding in God and who He says we are. The most challenging thing about dying to who we think we are and hopping off the treadmill is that we must come face to face with the extreme limits of our own power. In and of ourselves and through our own effort, we cannot ever become whole.
The person who is constantly pursuing more is afraid that if he were to stop, he would have to confront the reality that he is not enough. The person who chooses the path of ego death willingly accepts that by himself, he is not enough. Apart from the grace of a benevolent God, he has no hope of wholeness. The only way to accept death as the path forward is to trust that this benevolent God will not abandon us to ourselves but will restore us to the wholeness we were created for. It is a terrifying prospect to accept that we are not enough. And yet that is what we must accept in order to escape the treadmill and find wholeness.
Wholeness
What we really want is to feel complete, lacking nothing. We long to abide in peace, joy, love, patience, kindness, and all the other fruits of the spirit. Our default cultural thinking tells us that in order to get those things, we need all this external stuff, but those external things turn out to be completely empty. Most of us know they are empty, but somehow we still lack the fruits of the spirit and keep chasing a little bit more of what almost works. We want God plus the things we believe will make us whole. God plus money, recognition, success, security, acceptance, approval, and status. Pursuing God plus anything is just another manifestation of the egoic treadmill. God plus nothing is the only path to true wholeness. Once all we need is God, we are free from the lie that we lack anything, and all the manifestations of the egoic treadmill lose their appeal to us.
Like a hamster on a wheel, most people spend their entire lives looking for the rest of themselves and pursuing wholeness on the treadmill of self. We must recognize this vain pursuit for what it is so that we can avoid the trap of spending all our life energy pursuing empty promises in the hope that a little more will finally complete us, heal us, and show us who we truly are.
- John Walt
