I am horrified by Tolstoy’s description of the life of Ivan Ilyich as having been “most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrrible.”  I can not get that out of my head because it is so counter-intuitive.  By today’s standard, Ivan Ilyich’s life would not be considered ordinary by most people.  He grew up in a household where all of his needs were met and his father enjoyed appointments, not merely employment.  Ivan went to a good school, married according to the social norms, received job appointments, had friends, enjoyed the trappings of wealth  and lived well.  How much more could a person ask for?

That is what I am asking myself and what I struggle with whenever I think about my future and what I plan to do with my life each and every day.  I have been conditioned to think that the only thing that matters is what you accomplish with your life with respect to others around you.  (The person coming from the projects, previously receiving welfare and now has a city job making $35,000 is deemed to be far more successful by his peers than a person who is making $500,000 a year in the presence of multimillionaires.)  And in many ways college perpetuates that mindset.  I mean why else would I stay up for days on end, getting little or no sleep in order to do the best possible at all times, if I wasn’t looking for the big payoff in the end?  But does it make my life any better?  Tolstoy gives an emphatic No!

So, what is the meaning of Life?  What should we long for?  Some people desire to seek after love and happiness which stems from that.  I would not recommend that.  Ivan’s wife sought out love and she really believed that she found it in him.  But how quickly that changed.  She is not a unique person because that is the case with many people.  They believe that the emotional “feeling” of love will be enough to sustain them.  They soon learn that that is not the truth.  (If that was a viable position then the divorce rate in this country would not be over 50%.)  Life is more than the feeling of the emotion of love.

As a Christian my highest calling is to glorify God and to enjoy Him always.  The happiest times that I have ever had have been when I serve God with all of my heart, mind and strength.  And these were under some very averse situations. So, just as Ivan Ilyich found his joy in God, my joy has to first come from serving God and then everything else will fall into place: the education, the marriage, the business and the money.  All things have to fall into line under the highest calling.