What is success? What does it mean to become successful? From what reference point do we differentiate between what may or what may not constitute success? The propensity for, “success” as we have become ever so familiar with in the western world today, rarely, if ever, leaves the realm of financial and material attainment. It often times serves as a sort of comfort for most of us, reinforcing the illusioned vindication for these inherently environmental and socially debilitating attributes. Within this narrow framed logic, this idea of supposed, “success” appears to retain its validity. However, once we ponder the idea of every single individual aspiring to these unsustainable attributes, a different picture begins to emerge.

A picture, if you will, that reveals in rather high resolution, the level of destabilization that would commence both environmentally and socially if these notions of, “success” were continued to be facilitated on a global scale. Just as cancer cells develop within our bodies, and in some cases unfortunately metastasize over time, thus spreading their cancerous progression to other regions of our body, so too, does this, “success” neuroses that is continually compounded into the minds of innumerous amounts of people the world over to serve as the most empirical route to success. It is incredibly infectious to say the least, and this cancerous mentality can only alter its course, if we the cancerous cells, metaphorically speaking, begin repairing ourselves first and foremost. Our ideas of success seem to have evolved with us over the years, and have in fact, now become generally accepted as “normality” amongst the masses. Our perceptions of success have merely been distorted from, “reality” as it were.

It is important to note that there was once a time in which, “success” for most of us, dealt with escaping oppressive governments as well as understanding the obvious need to become more securer with our means, more specifically, the very well-being of not only ourselves, but our entire families as well, via mainly life supporting goods. This viable notion of success has become immensely perverted as time has passed, and has even been given credence through various advertisements and media channels who endlessly pursue the illusioned need for us, the consumer, to fill voids that simply are not there, or if they are there, they are greatly skewed to create a false need to immerse ourselves in mindless cyclical consumption.

The term, “success”, seems to disguise itself quite well; a powerful word indeed. However, the term itself is entirely contingent upon any given physical and social environment. Just as the functionality of biology cannot be discussed without the context of environment, neither can a word, whose large scope of varying definitions can seemingly be applied to many differing situations. Therefore, “success” can have varying definitions based upon who or what is deemed, “successful” within a given environment, and since we live on a finite planet with finite resources, it would seem most logical to conclude that the most empirical route to success that we, as human beings, can pursue is one of efficiency and sustainability. Think about it. Shouldn’t true success be based upon how well each one of us is able to orient ourselves on this planet and relate to one another, and to the environment that enables our very own existence? Imagine, a newfound meaning of success that would never question, what’s in it for me, but instead, would ask, what’s in it for you? This new definition of success, if extrapolated globally, could very well plant the seeds, if you will, of desirable and sustainable attributes with regards to what it means to become truly successful while living on a finite planet with finite resources. The power to change has always been within. If we all begin to collectively look more within, instead of up and out for our answers, it is my firm belief that most of us will become pleasantly surprised with the powers in which we have all been endowed with from the very beginning to become successful.