The dishes are my domain, and they were piling up. I cleaned out one of the two basins, put the stopper in the drain, and filled it with hot water, mixing in a good squirt of dish soap. When I turned around, my college-age son stood behind me, and his words surprised me: “I’ll help.” His presence was surprising, but then, he didn’t ask if I wanted help—a sign that he felt an obligation. Instead, he plainly stated, “I’ll help.”

My response: “Do I have cancer?”

When good things happen to me—and truthfully, they often do—this has become my go-to exclamation. I must be dying. My friends and family must want my last days to be good ones. Somehow, I have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and no one has yet had the heart to tell me that my days are severely numbered. My last memories will be the goodness of my friends and family, but only because I’ll soon be dead.

I don’t have cancer. Why am I surprised when good things come my way?

Cancer is a Surprise

Life is hard. You can make healthy choices, but sometimes you get cancer. Or hit by a bus. Hopefully, you were not expecting it, but somehow, we are not surprised by cancer. As Alanis Morissette crooned in her classic song Ironic, “It figures.” Cancer ends your upward journey. You simply cannot spend a year in chemo and achieve your goals. It’s over, at least for a while.

We make a lot of excuses. We blame a lot of people for our lack of success, but cancer is the ultimate canceler of plans—even if you beat it. The truth is, we can worry about such things, but the odds are actually in our favor. The odds of me getting cancer (knock on wood) are incredibly low. Family history is on my side.

And yet, would I be more surprised that my company now makes a million dollars a year or that I have cancer? What is my mindset that I’d be more surprised by the financial success?

Success is a Surprise

Success usually comes from really hard work. You push the proverbial rock up the hill until it finally rolls over the top and speeds down the other side. The push is so hard that when the rock rolls over the top, you do not see it coming. It is hard to even know where the top is. You start to wonder if there even is a top.

Success becomes showing up every day. We need to stop now and then and see if we are making progress, but most days, we just need to show up and do the work. Then, to our surprise, one day we show up to work, and there is a check in the mail, a “yes” in an email, and a client who needs your service.

Success often comes in spurts and sometimes in waves. Ultimately, the work itself is the success—or else you are doing the wrong work.

Success is Hard to Take

I do not know why this is true, but I’ve experienced enough success to know it is. It is probably the ancient curse. God told Adam and Eve that success would be difficult. For some of us, that is so ingrained that when we have an abundance of success, it feels like we must have done something wrong.

This mindset is strong enough that every time I get close to a new success, I hire a coach, a counselor, or both to ensure I do not sabotage my future. It is okay to succeed. It does not make you better than anybody else; it means you worked hard enough, avoided self-sabotage, and were lucky enough not to get cancer.

Success requires a deep humility that accepts success as an acceptable state. You were disciplined, mature, and lucky.

Conclusion

God wants you to succeed. This is not a “health and wellness” theology that says we are all meant to be rich. It is a theology that says God wants us to work hard, grow in maturity, and avoid the cancerous curse. These are all subjective to some extent. No one works to their full potential. No one matures into a perfect person. And no one avoids all the difficulties of life.

Success is fluid. Money is not the only measure. My relationships are a success, my community is a success, and my clients are a success. I honestly believe that just getting to do meaningful work is a success. And yet, I must do my best not to avoid the abundance of what is possible.

I do not have cancer. Now, I need to show up for work and continue pushing the rock up the hill.