Success: The Definition Resides Within You
From toddling days to your deathbed, you constantly hear people talking about being successful. Books and seminars are explaining how to be successful in life, but none of them ever emphasized on what precisely being successful meant. Is it having a five-figure salary? a great mansion? a beautiful partner? What is it?
I never dreamed of making to the Forbes list, or to have a fancy car, or to invent something that changes the course of the world. I wanted a decent job, a house to stay, to have a proper meal each day, and in the process maybe help someone who cannot. If I had these, am I a successful person? Maybe.
Success is defined by the goals you set in your life. It doesn’t have to be big, you are not here to explore planets, or to find dinosaurs existence, or spread religious peace in the world. You are here to lead a decent, happy life, and leave the world pristine.
It is good to set big goals, but also okay if you don’t.
Each person has a different identity and therefore different goals. One person may be aiming to work for a multinational corporation, and the other, to own it. The path and complexity to succeed to work and own a multinational corporation are different but the efforts that you put are the same. Success is not measured on how big you aim, or the complexity to achieve it.
You are successful if you have the following in your life,
Happiness
Are you President of the United States? or working as a ticket seller in a multiplex ? or just eating popcorn and reading books? whatever you are doing, if you are happy and satisfied, you are successful in your life.
You don’t need to prove your existence to the world
It is okay if people don’t acknowledge your success, it is okay if you are not one of the celebrity faces on a magazine, and it is completely okay if you are not in any of the pep talk shows. You don’t need to prove your existence to the world. Just keep doing something that brings you peace, satisfaction, and happiness.
I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite — Bertrand Russell
Kindness
Did you ever commit a crime? hurt someone? are you a narcissist? No? Then you are doing okay with your life, you are a kind person. You don’t necessarily be doing charity to be kind. Not hurting anybody is also a form of kindness.
There is always a possibility that one could turn out to be a sociopath or a terrorist, but you didn’t. You are successful in leading a peaceful life.
People shouldn’t have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty.― Maggie Stiefvater,
Belief
Success is not a straight road, it’s a switchback. There are human relationships, emotions that slow you down. It could be a stranger or your close one, but people are constantly trying to haul you down. No matter the circumstances, if you believe that you can achieve your goals and constantly make progress towards it, you will succeed.
“Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.”― Roy T. Bennett
Stop validating yourself and start validating the goals you set. However big or small it could be, don’t relinquish or swerve from your goals. Belief is the avenue to success.
Sometimes, due to an ample factors, you don’t achieve your goals, you don’t reach the destination. But the path that you laid during the process could be the road for someone to reach that destination. Still, you are successful.
