What Does Success Mean to You?
Not only have people repeatedly tried defining and explaining what success means to them, but most of us, with our customized experiences, have tasted success. Isn’t it? (Feel free to share in the comment section that moment when you felt this is what success is.)
Like all of you, I have tried to understand success and, of course, experienced as well, but the interpretation of success as a cycle brought tears into my eyes and modified the frame through which I view life, and the moment I changed my frame, my entire life changed.
It all started when Mr. and Mrs. Smith began to plan their family and were going to conceive in the next few weeks. While they were extremely excited, they were dreadfully scared for obvious reasons. Although the doctor had completely convinced them that the baby is absolutely healthy, they decided to take a two-week absolute rest before delivering the baby because for them at that moment, success was to give birth to a healthy child while creating no complications for the mother and they succeeded as well. Thank goodness!! Circular face, bright red cheeks, tiny size just like a cherry tomato was their son and acknowledging his appearances or maybe they were lazy or tired they named their son as Cherry. Funny, isn’t it?
Cherry was no different than other infants. He would sleep most of the time and wake up only when hungry. To him, success was enough food and excess sleep. C’mon, what else should we expect from a 3-month-old boy right? As he turned 6, his ideology of success changed. Now he not only needed food and sleep but also attention from his mother because work was keeping her busy. At the age of one, when Mr. and Mrs. Smith were already planning investments for the foreign education for their son, what made Cheery cheerful and confident and successful was walking independently without any external support. Isn’t that amazing? Most of us, if not all, are blessed with all that we need to lead a normal life, but we can’t stop cribbing. Please take a moment now to express gratitude for You can walk and talk, move and dance, cook and feed, and so on, and believe me, this was your only objective at some point in life.
Time flies, as we all know, and Cherry turned four, and his ideology of success now was not urinating in his pants, and the day he wouldn’t do that, he would think of him to be the most successful and skillful person; on the planet called Earth!
Cherry had started going to a nearby school where his father dropped him, and his mother picked him back home. After a few years, Cherry’s parent’s thought that he is grown-up enough to travel back home independently as the school was only a couple of kilometers away and then at the age of 8 tracing the way back home all by himself was the biggest challenge and the only definition of success. At the age of 12, making new friends is what success meant to Cherry, and at the age of 18, when his parents were busy worrying about his future getting a driver’s license is what Cherry wanted.
In the next five years, Cherry graduated from one of the top universities in the US, and that’s what he wanted then, not worrying or even thinking about work, but that did not last for a long time. Cherry had to enter the corporate world ASAP, and for him, at the age of 25, success was to earn a living. Five years later, he wanted to settle and be a family man. Very soon, Cherry became a father to twin girls and felt this intense urge to earn more. During the age of mid 30’s he just wanted to be highly successful with his finances. He just wanted to accumulate wealth and build an empire for his daughters. In his mid-40’s Cherry started losing confidence because of his appearances. Now he had all the money, but his definition of success moved to maintain his handsome look. By now, Cherry’s daughters had grown up and were ready to enter college, and Cherry was entering his 50s, and the success meant upgrading one more time. Now he just wanted the best education for his girls. In the next five years, at the age of 55, when Cherry started to miss out on some of his duties, success was performing them at least precisely, if not accurately. Very soon, Cherry was going to retire, and he was mentally prepared for the same, but what was important then was to continue to hold the driver’s license to be a free bird.
Post-retirement, Cheery started feeling bored and useless, which invites many diseases, and at the age of 65, he just wanted to be disease-free. In his early 70s, Cherry still desired to be independent, and not being a burden is what he believed success was at that moment. At 75, Cherry had only two friends left and to him, having them for the rest of his life is a success.
At 80, just like when he was 8, success was knowing the way back home. At 85, just like 4, not urinating in his pants was the ultimate success. At 90, precisely like 1, Cherry felt walking independently without any support was a success.
Life is a cycle, and the definition of success keeps upgrading over the course of time due to many factors. When the definition of success changes multiple times for one person, why do we have a general standard of success for different masses? Why do we compare and fall into the trap of unnecessary internal conflict? Everyone is different; every situation is different, everyone’s opinion about Every situation is also different. Please don’t generalize.
