The Sunday Times Rich List was published this week. It’s always good for a giggle and I like to have my annual grump about not being on it. This year’s list comes with the status-crushing statistic that you need 100 million pounds to join the country’s richest 1000 people. Although, apparently, a list that was once dominated by inherited wealth is now largely made up of self-made men and women. So perhaps there’s hope for us all.
The idea that as individuals we can be self-made is one of the most persuasive in our culture. Seen by some as something to aspire to. On the surface, it seems admirable enough. That someone of humble origins breaks out of their social position and achieves wealth or status by their own efforts has romantic appeal. But I confess, whenever someone is described as self-made a little alarm goes off in my head.
Not least because I think it contains a delusion. No one is really self-made. Much as we’d all love to make out that we’ve got to where we’ve got to because of our own efforts, we are all shaped and moulded by the people and circumstances we encounter in our lives. The most individualistic, self-driven, talented person will at some point need other people to help them succeed. Even if it’s to exploit them.
There’s a healthy perspective in recognising that the good things that come our way are not always of our own making. The idea that someone can be entirely self-made offends this reality. It also offends our humanity, for it begs the questions: was a self-made person a person before they made it? And what about the person who never makes it?
If there’s pride in the humble bragging of the self-made, perhaps the real peril lies in self-worship. This danger was precisely observed by Disraeli who when told that the radical politician John Bright had a humble background and was an entirely self-made man, answered, ‘I know he is – and he adores his maker too.’
Scripture offers a helpful corrective here: ‘Everyone who exalts themselves will be humbled and everyone who humbles themselves will be exalted.’ The problem for the self-made person isn’t the riches, or the status, it’s the danger of forgetting who helped them get there. It can be a good thing to be fruitful, to find purpose and fulfilment in work, and even riches, but we need to keep checking to see Who it is that made us what we are.
I end with some advice I once heard. Whether you are doing well or even if you’re not, a good way of keeping perspective, and a sense of who you are, is to stand naked in front of a mirror and repeat the verse from Psalm 139 that says: ‘I will give thanks to You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’ I guarantee you will see yourself more clearly.