Ambition

Is it morally wrong to be “filthy rich”? Researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Massachusetts Amherst examined how people across 20 countries judge excessive wealth. People in wealthier, more equal societies are actually more likely to view having too much money as morally wrong compared to those living in poorer, more unequal countries.

The research involved over 4,300 participants from nations as diverse as Belgium, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Peru. While you might expect people in struggling economies to resent the ultra-rich more, the opposite appears to be true.

The study found that people do not find excessive wealth very immoral across all countries. But more equal and wealthy societies like Belgium and Switzerland consider having too much money more wrong than less equal societies.

This suggests that when basic needs are met and inequality is lower, people become more sensitive to the potential harm caused by concentrated extreme wealth. Meanwhile, in developing nations where billionaires might represent hope for economic advancement, excessive wealth is viewed more favorably.

The researchers reference a 2023 statement by Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest person, who said it’s morally wrong to use the word “billionaire” as an insult if the individual uses their wealth to create products making millions of people happy. This perspective aligns with Western thinking that prioritizes happiness maximization as a moral good.

The luxury of moral criticism of excess may be more affordable for wealthier communities. Meanwhile, in developing nations, billionaires might represent aspiration rather than moral failure.

Possible Preaching Angle: Money; Money, love of; Wealth – The Bible does not condemn wealth, as such, since Abraham, Job, and Solomon, among others, were very wealthy individuals. The Bible does warn about the love of money (1 Tim. 6:10), the oppression of the poor, and making money ones security (Matt. 6:19)

An accountant who fills out spreadsheets at the beach, a dog groomer who always has time for one more client, a basketball player who shoots free throws to the point of exhaustion.

Every profession has its share of hard chargers and overachievers. But for some workers — perhaps more than ever in our always-on, always-connected world — the drive to send one more email, clip one more poodle, sink one more shot becomes all-consuming.

Workaholism is a common feature of the modern workplace. A recent review found that roughly 15 percent of workers qualify as workaholics. That adds up to millions of overextended employees around the world who don’t know when — or how, or why — to quit.

Workaholism could be on the upswing thanks to Zoom, Slack and every other technological advance that makes it easier for people to work anywhere, anytime. Behavioral scientist Toon Taris says. “It is something I’m worried about. The conditions for workaholism to develop have never been as good as today.”

Psychologist Malissa Clark agrees that the stage seems to be set for more people to find their inner workaholics. She said, “The mass shift to working from home and remote work may have changed some of our communication patterns and expectations.” Working from home, which became especially widespread during the pandemic, likely created a new group of always-on workers who lost all sight of the boundaries between work and home life. It’s troubling, she says. “Even just your average worker might now start to be more of a workaholic.”

Jack Hassell, a human resource specialist in New Zealand, interviewed an academic who got a wake-up call during the massive Christchurch earthquake of 2011. When the earthquake started, they were reluctant to quit work and leave their desk, Hassell says. Finally forced to exit the shaking building, the academic had an epiphany. “They realized, ‘Oh my God, I was so consumed with work I was willing to almost die.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Part of the curse (Gen. 3:19) introduced toil and effort into our lives. Yet, God never meant for us to become slaves to our work. In fact, He insists that we take a day of rest for every six days we labor (Exod. 20:8-11; Luke 23:56).

Nine-year-old Kaden is a Michigan boy undergoing treatment for a cardiac condition at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. He recently had his dream come true when he met his hero—astronaut José Hernández—through Make-A-Wish Michigan. The emotional and inspiring meeting was the result of a heartfelt wish to connect with the man whose story helped Kaden find strength during his medical journey.

“Everything was amazing! Thank you! Kaden had a blast. My cheeks never hurt so much from smiling so hard,” said Kaden’s mother, Michele, describing the joy the experience brought to their family.

Hernández, a Mexican American engineer and former NASA astronaut, flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-128 in 2009. His life story was chronicled in the memoir Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut and the Amazon Prime Video film A Million Miles Away. Both projects showcase his remarkable journey from farm fields to outer space. That resilience deeply resonated with Kaden, who has adopted “never giving up” as his personal motto.

The special trip included VIP access and a guided tour of NASA. That was where Kaden was able to explore the wonders of space science alongside his inspirational role model. “Wishes give kids the strength to keep fighting and bring joy to their families,” said Make-A-Wish Michigan, the organization that made the meeting possible. Kaden’s wish was also featured at the nonprofit’s Wish Ball Grand Rapids event, helping raise over $652,000—and counting—to fund future wishes for other children across the state.

To date, Make-A-Wish Michigan has granted more than 12,000 wishes, each designed to give critically ill children hope, joy, and the motivation to keep moving forward. For Kaden, meeting José Hernández was more than a dream come true—it was a life-affirming reminder of what’s possible when you refuse to give up.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Encouragement from others can be a divine provision for endurance in trials.

For young professionals today, work is no longer just something they do for a paycheck; it has become one of the primary spheres of meaning in their lives. For those who pursue a vocation, work is a way of leading a purposeful life and making a mark on the world. For those still going to the office, work is where people find others to talk to and, if they’re lucky, people who care about the same things that they do. Often, it’s where people fall in love.

Above all, it’s how many people in the middle and upper-middle classes define their value and sense of purpose: it is against the standards of their professions that people measure their level of success and personal growth. And it is in a large measure on the social status of their professions that they base their self-worth.

Because work has become so central to people’s identities, self-esteem, and social lives, it is easy to lose sight of its many dry demands. For full-time employees, work takes most of our waking hours. And for whole swaths of highly skilled white-collar workers, the willingness and ability to give more and more time to their careers has become a professional virtue in itself.

On Sept. 29, 1916, newspapers across the country announced a wealth milestone once thought to be unreachable: the world’s first billionaire. “Standard (Oil) at $2,014 makes its head a billionaire,” blared The New York Times headline, adding that Standard Oil’s soaring share price “makes John D. Rockefeller, founder and largest shareholder, almost certainly a billionaire.”

Now more than a century after the first U.S. billionaire, the question of who will be first to reach the trillionaire mark continues to fascinate. According to a new report from Informa Connect Academy, Tesla CEO Elon Musk will likely be the first trillionaire sometime in 2027, assuming that his wealth continues to grow at an annual average rate of 110%.

The second person projected to reach trillionaire status will be India’s Gautam Adani, founder of the Adani Group conglomerate, in 2028. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who has seen his wealth skyrocket from $3 billion to more than $90 billion in five years, would become a trillionaire by 2028. Fourth on the list is Indonesia’s Prajogo Pangestu, founder of the Indonesian energy and mining conglomerate Barito Pacific, who could reach trillionaire status by 2028.

Tied for fifth would be LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg who are forecast to become trillionaires sometime in 2030. Some top billionaires who seem like strong candidates to quickly reach the four-comma club don’t make the top 10. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the Google founders, are all slated to wait 12 years to become trillionaires.

So, more than 100 years after the first billionaire, the first trillionaire could well be crowned in the next decade.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible does not condemn wealth, as such, since Abraham, Job, and Solomon, among others, were very wealthy individuals. What the Bible does warn about is the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10), the oppression of the poor by the rich (Jam. 5:1-6), and placing faith in the earthly “security” of wealth, rather than in God (Prov. 18:10-11, Matt. 6:19-21). The warnings are intended to encourage a balanced approach to wealth and possessions, recognizing that true fulfillment comes from a relationship with God and serving others.

There is a reason God gave us the Sabbath rest. We need it. We were not created to work seven days a week. Yet, that is where we are headed as a culture, especially since COVID-19, and this is not a good thing.

Technology tethers us to our work through smartphones and “productivity” apps such as Slack and Teams. The majority of workers regularly check their email on their smartphones, which never leave their side, even after work hours or on vacation. The rise in remote work means work and family spheres are no longer separate, blurring the boundaries between work and home. Or as Andrew Barnes, cofounder of 4 Day Week Global, said, “We’re not working from home, we’re sleeping in the office.” This is our new world of work.

Our relationship with work is becoming increasingly unhealthy. Levels of burnout and stress are at all-time highs. Even before the pandemic, the World Health Organization called stress the “health epidemic of the 21st century.” What is a major source of that stress? Our jobs.

COVID-19 exacerbated this problem. During the pandemic, workdays became longer—in the United States, the average workday is now three hours longer; and in the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Spain, it’s two hours longer. But more than that, we have gotten used to working outside traditional work hours.

Leadership can kill you. At least leadership in high stakes positions.

Nineteen chief executives died in office in 2023, the most since 2010, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks turnover at U.S. companies. The outplacement firm tallied a record 1,914 CEO exits in 2023, which Senior Vice President Andy Challenger partly attributes to the post-pandemic burnout that many execs feel. In a January survey of 600 C-suite executives by the professional network Chief, 37% said avoiding burnout would be a personal challenge this year.

A candid help-wanted ad might go something like this: Company seeks visionary leader to take business to the next level. Incumbent will be paid handsomely but may have fewer years to enjoy earnings because the stress of the role can reduce life expectancy.

Ivan Menezes was a few weeks shy of retiring as CEO when he died last June at age 63. The company said he was hospitalized for stomach ulcers and died after a brief illness. Notable CEOs who suffered fatal heart attacks on the job in the past 20 years include Jim Cantalupo of McDonald’s, Samuel “Skip” Ackerman of Panacos Pharmaceuticals, Jerald Fishman of Analog Devices, and Carolyn Reidy of Simon & Schuster. They ranged in age from 58 to 71.

Does a pay raise bring happiness? Sometimes it will, but the level of happiness is often tied to how we compare our salaries to others.

According to a story in The Wall Street Journal, people’s happiness with their pay is strongly tied to how it compares with the pay of others around them, say researchers who study compensation. Sometimes, those comparisons rankle.

Executives are more likely to leave their companies if their pay is low compared with other top bosses, according to a 2017 study in the journal Human Resource Management. Comparisons matter closer to home, too. Living in an area where people tend to make more money than you is linked to being less happy.

A 30% raise made Ryan Powell less happy at work. Powell, a 38-year-old finance director for a manufacturer in western North Carolina, received that pay bump in 2022. He had been hoping for more based on the salary information he had heard from recruiters, peers in the industry, and his M.B.A. cohort.

The initial thrill of the raise lasted about three months, he said. “The further I got into it, the more I was realizing that I was anchored to the higher number.”

An insightful Aperture video reveals the sad reality that our happiness, or lack of, is always at a regular baseline. It only fluctuates slightly despite all our attempts at bliss and euphoria.

You wake up in the morning and go to work. You spend eight hours working away at your desk on a job you once loved but now kind of just tolerate. It's 5:00 p.m., you go home, eat dinner, and watch TV, only to do it all over again the next day. You play sports or catch up with friends on the weekend and life's good, but you still feel like something is missing.

Now imagine you get that well deserved promotion and a healthy raise and suddenly you're going on those vacations you once dreamt of. Driving a nicer car, receiving more status and respect in the workplace. Your quality of life has been significantly upgraded and finally you feel like you're fulfilling your potential. Fancy restaurants, rubbing elbows with influential people, your life feels new and almost foreign compared to where you came from.

Yet in a year or so your once brand-new Porsche just becomes your daily driver. All the imported sushi starts to taste the same and while you still frequent white sandy beaches and pristine ski slopes, these places have lost their allure.

You've completely changed your life but you're still in the same position you were in before you got the promotion. Those things that used to excite you have become stale, mundane, and boring. The reason why you'll never be happy is called “hedonic adaptation.” Hedonic adaptation is the tendency to return to a base level of happiness even when undergoing profound periods of positive or negative change.

These are dark days for military recruiting.

The Army, Navy, and Air Force have tried almost everything in their power to bring in new people. They’ve relaxed enlistment standards, set up remedial schools for recruits who can’t pass entry tests, and offered signing bonuses worth up to $75,000. Still, in 2023 the three services together fell short by more than 25,000 recruits.

Military leaders say there are so few Americans who are willing and able to serve, and so many civilian employers competing for them, that getting enough people into uniform is nearly impossible.

Tell that to the Marines. The Marine Corps ended the recruiting year on September 30th having met 100 percent of its goal, with hundreds of contracts already signed for the next year. The corps did it while keeping enlistment standards tight and offering next to no perks.

When asked earlier this year about whether the Marines would offer extra money to attract recruits, the commandant of the Marine Corps replied: “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine. That’s your bonus.”

In a nutshell, that is the Marine Corps’ marketing strategy: Dismiss financial incentives as chump change compared with the honor of joining the Corps. Brush off the idea of military service as a steppingstone to civilian career opportunities. Instead, dangle the promise of the chance to be part of something intangible, timeless, and elite.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians aren’t called to elitism, but we are called to a life of adventure and challenge.

She is the most famous celebrity whose name you don’t know: the actress who plays Flo in all those Progressive commercials. Yes, she is a real person.

As told in the New York Times, Flo (aka Stephanie Courtney) was once a struggling comedian trying to make it big, sending in tapes of her performances to Saturday Night Live. Driving to failed auditions in a car that didn’t go in reverse—and unable to pay to get it fixed. Courtney eventually landed a small role for an insurance ad spot as a cashier.

Fast forward to today and her comedy career is still non-existent, but she makes millions of dollars a year doing what she never wanted to do for a living. Courtney may have more zeros at the end of her pay check, but her story is far from unique. Youthful aspirations so often erode into some version of settling with the hand life (and God?) has dealt you.

NYT reporter Caity Weaver asked, “Who has a better job than you?” Courtney said, “There are times when I ask myself that. The miserable me who didn’t get to audition for ‘S.N.L.’ never would have known, how good life could be when she was denied what she wanted. I hope that’s coming through. I’m screaming it in your face.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Courtney’s story suggests something profound: it is a difficult wisdom to learn, as the Prodigal Son did, that there is something far more meaningful than the glory of what we might want for our lives. The faith that holds on to Christ simultaneously lets go of everything else.

William Muir, a researcher at Purdue University, studies the productivity of chickens. He wants to know how to breed chickens that lay lots of eggs and create environments that foster greater productivity. To research how to make super chickens, he did an experiment.

Muir put chickens into two groups. One group contained normal, healthy chickens. He left them alone for six generations of a chicken’s life. Another, separate group included all the super chickens, those who are proven high producing egg layers. Muir also left them alone for six generations. He provided food, water, and a clean environment, but did nothing to influence the chickens egg laying.

At the end of the experiment, Muir discovered that the group of normal chickens were flourishing: they were laying more eggs per chicken than when the experiment started. In the group of super chickens, only three were left. They had pecked the others to death. The super chickens had laid more eggs through a strategy of suppressing other chickens’ productivity, by killing, or intimidating them, so they were unable to lay eggs.

Possible Preaching Angle

Competition; Leadership; Success - Leadership can fall into the same trap. We believe that if we find the right super chickens we will have success. We look for superstars. In our culture, and in our churches, we often create super chickens, because we desperately want success. We think it can come through one superstar leader.

In the 2023 South East Asia 500-meter race, one runner showed what it really means to run the race well. Despite the pounding rain and her last place finish, Bou Samnang refused to give up. Cheering fans encouraged the native Cambodian as she finished the race on behalf of her country, six minutes after the race was decided.

Despite knowing that she would not finish first place, Bou Samnang was determined to finish well. According to one news source she said, "I tried to reach the finish line because I wanted to show people that in life, even though we go a bit slow or fast, we will reach our destination all the same."

It would have been easy for her to stop running, especially as she was dealing with anemia which prevented her from running as fast as she would have liked. But her determination and endurance has led to her inspiring fans around the world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Paul wrote that our faith journey resembles a race. Running the race well doesn’t always mean finishing first. It does mean, working hard for something outside of yourself, persisting with a goal, and enduring hard times for Christ. We are encouraged to be like Bou Samnang, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, endure to the end.

Work success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That’s the gist of an article in The Wall Street Journal titled, “Is This It?’ When Success Isn’t Satisfying.” The article states:

You got the job, won the award, launched the new project to accolades. So why don’t you feel better? “You get the title and it’s, like, ‘Ugh. Is this it?’” says Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who leads a study on how people thrive.

Sometimes, getting the thing is just as delicious as we imagine. Other times, we climb and climb, only to be underwhelmed by what we find at the top: more work, political wrangling, the feeling of being a fraud. Or the success high wears off fast, replaced by that old panic we hoped the accomplishment would finally cure. Then we wonder: Where’s the next win?

We’re all sprinting on what psychologists call a hedonic treadmill. That is, we might get a hit of joy when we achieve something, but we eventually return to our baseline level of happiness (or unhappiness). Whatever heights we reach, we’re still, well, us.

The article quotes a man named Andy Dunn who sold his clothing line to Walmart for $310 million. Mr. Dunn, now 44, spent years strategizing and fantasizing about such a sale but says it was a mirage. Building the company brought him more happiness, he says, than the eventual payout. Dunn said, “From the outside, people think, ‘Oh, my God, amazing, [but] I learned that those are just illusory things.”

In their book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath describe an experiment in which participants underwent three painful trials. In the first, they submerged a hand for 60 seconds in a bucket filled with frigid, 57-degree water.

In the second trial, the time was increased by 30 seconds. For the first 60 seconds, the water was still 57-degrees. But in the final 30 seconds, it was raised to 59-degrees. In neither trial were participants told how long the experiment would last.

Before their third and final bucket, they were asked if they'd prefer to repeat the first or second experiment. A whopping 69% chose the longer trial! Think about that for a moment. In both of the first two trials, their hand was placed in frigid water. The second trial was 30 seconds longer and only slightly less uncomfortable in the end. Yet, more than two out of three people asked to repeat the second trial. Why?

Psychologists tell us it's because when people assess an experience, they rate the experience based on its best or worst part (that is, the peak) and the ending. They call it the "peak-end rule."

Whether you like it or not, people will tend to remember you for when you were at your best, or worst, and for the way you were in the end. It's impossible for any of us to always be at our best. Our worst selves will sometimes slip out no matter how hard we try to hide them. But the ending is something we can better control. Knowing that it's the end, we can devote more time and attention to getting it right.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Christian Life; Discipleship - Right now, your life may be average by most standards, with all of its highs and lows, but if you make an effort to end well your every encounter with other people, you'll leave them with a good impression. There are no second chances for making a good first impression, but there's always the chance to end well. 2) Pastor; Minister - Overall, a sermon may be so-so; but if the conclusion is memorable, it'll likely be remembered fondly weeks later.

Miwa Sado, a reporter for NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, “died in the line of duty and her body was found with her mobile phone still clasped in her hand.” Doctors soon established that Miwa Sado died as a result of congenital heart failure. But following an investigation by Japan’s Ministry of Labor, the official cause of here death was changed to “karoshi”: death by overwork.

In the month preceding her death, Sado had clocked an exhausting 159 hours of official overtime. That was equivalent to working two full eight-hour shifts every weekday over a four-week period. Unofficially, the number of hours of overtime probably exceeded that.

For the last few decades, the world has watched as China became the world’s largest producer and exporter of manufactured goods. But one of the unintended consequences of this has been a surge in the number of people whose deaths have been attributed to overwork. In 2016, CCTV, the state broadcaster, which usually only resorts to hyperbole when they have good news to share, announced that more than half a million Chinese citizens die from overworking every year.

Many in China’s high technology sector now order their working lives according to the mantra “996.” The two 9s refer to the requirements to put in twelve-hour days, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and the 6 refers to the six days of the week that employees with ambitions to get anywhere are expected to be at their workstations.

Possible Preaching Angle:

There are so many people who overwork their entire lives. They may not suddenly die as poor Miwa did, but over the course of their lives, they do eventually work themselves “into” death by fixating on the wrong goal, and putting temporary gains over eternal rewards.

Tim Keller used this story to illustrate the “conversion of the heart.”

Many years ago, when I was in college, I was part of a Christian fellowship, and there was a young man who joined up. And it shocked us all. This young man was famous on the campus for being incredibly sexually active, and he had the looks to go with it. He was handsome and charismatic. And then, to our surprise he came into the fellowship where he declared that “He’s a Christian now … and he foreswears his sexual past … and he going to live a chaste, pure life.”

He threw himself into the Christian activities. Everyone said, “Wow! This is a real change.” However, it wasn’t long before we came to realize that this young man, in every group, any committee, any Bible study, whether he was the leader or not, he had to be the leader. He always sought control. There was power struggle after power struggle, and after a while it became clear that when he was sexually active it really wasn’t about sex; it was about power. He would go after some girl until she fell for him, and then he lost all interest. It wasn’t about sex. It was about power.

When he came into the church, he suddenly adopted all the Christian beliefs, the Statements of Faith, and Christian practices. He stopped living in sexual promiscuity. But deep down inside, he still wanted power. Power in relationships.

Keller points out that we all have the need for deeper conversion in our heart. He says, “Deep down inside, every one of our hearts is saying, ‘If I have money, if I have approval, if I have power, if I have comfort, if I have control, if I have romance ….’ Every one of our hearts needs that deeper conversion from our idols to the Living God.”

You can read a free PDF copy of the book here.

Derek Thompson, a staff writer for The Atlantic, argues that Americans have a new object for worship. He calls it the religion of workism. Thompson writes:

The decline of traditional faith in America has coincided with an explosion of new atheisms. Some people worship beauty, some worship political identities, and others worship their children. But everybody worships something. And workism is among the most potent of the new religions competing for congregants.

Thompson defines workism as the need to make work “the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.”

No large productive country averages more hours of work a year. And the gap between the U.S. and other countries is growing. Americans “work longer hours, have shorter vacations, get less in unemployment, disability, and retirement benefits, and retire later, than people in comparably rich societies.”

In a recent report on the epidemic of youth anxiety, 95 percent of teens said “having a job or career they enjoy” would be “extremely or very important” to them as an adult. This ranked higher than any other priority, including “helping other people who are in need” (81 percent) or getting married (47 percent). Finding meaning at work beats family and kindness as the top ambition.