I was surprised to discover that my pursuit of greatness had actually been a search for God. And I was glad. Because what I was beginning to understand about God was immeasurably greater than what I had thought I could gain through personal success.
I was attending an academic conference in my field of study—the type of conference many graduate students use as a means of landing a job and which my friends and I jokingly referred to as "the cattle market." Academic positions were scarce. If a student gave a brilliant paper, met the right people, and said all the right things, chances for employment would be increased—or so we thought. But that weekend I suddenly had a strong desire to quit the whole scene. For some time the push of personal ambition had been making me uncomfortable— even miserable. I felt like someone trying to walk up a steep slope covered with loose gravel. And recently some frightening physical symptoms had appeared. I wanted out.
I had to admit that the problem was a precarious sense of identity. The job itself wasn't the important thing. I just wanted human opinion to say, "You're somebody"—especially the academic community that I so highly respected. Now the questions came: What could fill the gap where ambition had been? As I ceased trying to manipulate my little world in order to gain a satisfying sense of selfhood, what would motivate me now?
