Albert Schweitzer is often associated with the quote “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
It applies more in today’s world than anytime earlier. We spend our lives in anticipations and determining to be vastly happy at some period when we have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future has not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age. Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.
Most of us do reach the top of the mountain, but as we look back, we realize that we have missed the beauty along the way.
On the other hand some of us are happy and halt our climb only to realize later that we have been denied the beauty at the top and suddenly all the happiness just vanishes. So it looks like the ideal situation to be in is to strike a balance between being successful and happy.
Easier said than done. Especially when what guides us is the beauty at top and we have to climb the mountain with little help or backing. The greatest realization which every one of us feels is that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances. The fact remains that we are only as free as our dispositions and as brave as our fears. The irony is that these never suffice or often interfere with the figurative mountain that we are setting out to climb in our lives. Imagine we pick up our mountain climbing gear much before deciding which mountain to scale. We will neither be quipped to reach the top nor will be happy in the climb.
Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it. Let’s take a moment to pause in between the climb and reflect. Do we need help to scale the rest of the journey and reach the top successfully happy or just drag ourselves and just be successful.
Just like every search begins with a question, the secret to being successfully happy begins with one question, what if?
What if we could change our disposition?
What if we could shake off our fears?
What if we could pick the right gear to make our climb less stressful?
What if we could not just reach the top but actually arrive?
What if we had the power to make us happy or unhappy today and we could choose which it shall be?
What if we could get all the help that we need to make our dreams come true?
What if we could have someone suggest the right gear, the right mountain, and the right climb?
We all have our peaks to conquer and we have to do it ourselves. A little help never hurts. This help comes in the form of people around us. Someone with gentleness and a deep loving concern for us and our successes.
What if we could find that someone today and be happily successful ever after. While this might look like a fairy tale ending, in fact this is not. It’s a fairy tale beginning and that will transform each one of us forever.
It’s all starts and ends with finding that one person who could pick your gear for you, show you the right mountain to scale and help us arrive.
Note: This article was originally published at Coatom Blog
