Modern culture, fixated on the ideals of self-actualization and personal happiness, tells us that a life of sacrifice, of living for others, is a life wasted. Noble it may be, but self-denial is ultimately misguided. Rather, self-gratification and self-realization, these are the greatest goods towards which the modern man, naturalistic and nihilistic, can strive.
Our Lord Jesus imparted precisely the opposite mindset. Pick up your cross and follow me, He instructed. Greater love has no man, He said, than to lay down his life for his friends. No, it is not in self-assertion or self-seeking, but in sacrifice and service to others, that we will find true fulfillment. To find meaning, joy, and purpose we must prioritize the needs of others. To find happiness we must spurn it. Paradoxically, true self-advancement comes through deference.
To live we must die.
I'll leave you with the words of St. Paul from Phil 2.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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