Article August 11, 1980 Issue

Fulfillment

Written for the Sentinel

Self-fulfillment is a basic goal for many—sometimes sought with a quiet purposefulness, sometimes with brash intensity. It may be adopted occasionally as an excuse for self-gratification and carelessness in regard to others. Many people, looking about at the fragile condition of human relationships, wonder if the structure of marriage, family, even society itself, can survive the preoccupation with self that howls, "I know what I want for me, and I want it all now!"

Self-indulgence, emotional extravagance, and mere sensual gratification are not components of true fulfillment. These traits can be deleted when exposed for what they really are: offshoots of the mortal belief that man is material.

Genuine fulfillment is aligned with the concept of identity. It includes a conviction that one's work, one's private life and individuality, have meaning. A yearning for betterment can be channeled into the stability of upright motives and spiritual adventuring. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, beside a marginal heading "Personal identity" we find these words of Mrs. Eddy's: "Give up your material belief of mind in matter, and have but one Mind, even God; for this Mind forms its own likeness. The loss of man's identity through the understanding which Science confers is impossible; and the notion of such a possibility is more absurd than to conclude that individual musical tones are lost in the origin of harmony." Science and Health, pp. 216-217;

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