Soul Cravings by Erwin Raphael McManus

Author:Erwin Raphael McManus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

ENTRY #17 A Search for Significance

OVER THE YEARS, I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO SPEAK AT conferences on this very subject. Each time in the middle of my lecture I would ask one of the more well-known speakers to come up and help me for a minute. I would try to choose someone the people saw as a symbol of success. Someone who, in a transparent moment, the audience would confess they wanted to be like. I would begin an interview and explain that the only rules were that the person had to be honest. The dialogue would go something like this:

“Elvis, it’s good to have you here today. I want to ask you a couple of personal questions. Is that all right?”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“What I need from you is for you just to be perfectly honest.

Okay?”

“Of course. Yes.”

“You’re a pretty successful guy, and everyone here admires you. A lot of people would rather spend their lives imitating you than actually finding their own unique voice.”

“That’s true. Viva Las Vegas.”

“Elvis, has there ever been a time when you have felt insignificant?”

(Long pause.) “Yeah.”

“So there’s been a moment in your life when even with all of your success, you’ve wondered if your life had any value, any real significance? In spite of all of your success, these insecurities have haunted you? In other words, you’re nothing but a hound dog?”

“That’s right.”

“How did you get through those moments?”

Not mentioning alcohol or prescription drugs, he responds, “Love.

People around me, Priscilla, you know, the people who care about me helped me through those moments.”

“And they told you what?”

“You know, that I’m the King.”

“In other words, that you’re significant, that you have value, that you’re important?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Elvis, I do some counseling sometimes—not often, but occasionally—and I’d like to help you through this. You know that moment when you felt insignificant, that moment when you wondered if you had any value at all, if your life really meant anything? That was the most honest moment you ever had, because you are insignificant. You’re just a speck of dust against the backdrop of the cosmos. You are an evolutionary tragedy, a gnat with self-awareness heading straight toward the windshield of inevitability. All your future holds for you is splat and then it’s over.

“I know what you’re thinking, but look at all that you’ve done. You’re the king of Graceland, the king of rock and roll, the king of rhinestones. And what about all the people who tell you that you’re so important? That’s because we all live in this illusion together. If you’re not significant, then what are we? We affirm you’re important in hopes that we are too. But we’re all deluded by the same drug. If we all came to our senses, if we could all sober up, we would see the truth—we’re born, we rock, then we die. Welcome to my own version of reality therapy. So, Elvis, how are you feeling?”

“Not good.”

“Oh, by the way, everything I just said is absolutely true if there is no God.

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