A young man walked slowly across the grocery store parking lot, headed inside to pick up a few things for dinner.
Along the way, he slowed.
Up ahead, a silver sports car sat parked near the entrance. Sleek lines. Top down. Polished. The kind of car designed to be looked at.
Right next to it was parked an older sedan. Tan paint, dulled by years of sun. A scratch along the rear door. The kind of car you’d walk past a hundred times and never remember.
He paused for a moment to take in the contrast.
Then he noticed the people.
Almost everyone glanced at the sports car. Some lingered. A few pulled out their phones. A father pointed it out to his son. One older man slowed his cart to a stop and stood there for a moment as if to savor the sight.
Nobody, it seemed to him, looked twice at the older car.
It was obvious, watching the spectacle, which of the cars was more admired and which of the two drivers most of these people would rather be.
But wait, he thought. We don’t know anything about these drivers. All we see is the car they are driving.
It is true that the driver of the sports car may be a successful businessman who grew up with nothing and made himself into a man with more money than he knew what to do with. But we don’t know that to be true.
He might be drowning in debt, leasing a lifestyle he can’t afford, terrified of the day the bill comes due.
Do we know if he is a generous man? Would we think highly of him if we knew every dollar of his income was spent on himself and never on anyone else? Or what sacrifices were made at home in order to buy the car?
And what really do we know about the driver of the older car?
Perhaps her husband left years ago and she scrapes by working two jobs to provide for her children. Maybe she spent her entire life lovingly teaching kindergarten children how to read. Maybe she paid off the old vehicle a decade ago and has been sending the savings to a sponsored child overseas ever since. Maybe she could afford something nicer but decided, long ago, that nicer wasn’t the point.
Or maybe she’s none of those things.
We don’t know. That’s the point. We simply don’t know.
Material possessions are a terrible way to measure success. A rich heart may be under a poor coat; and a poor heart may live under a rich coat.
But strolling through the parking lot that Saturday morning, the young man realized something. Our society often measures success in all the wrong ways.
A piece of metal in a parking lot never tells the whole story. Or, maybe it does—and we’re just learning the wrong lessons.
