What’s a Successful Life?
Defining success on our terms
“We can all do the next right thing the best way we know how. Choosing that option repeatedly, over and over again, is the perfect formula for success.”(Joshua Becker)
Conventional success is about achieving goals, like earning a lot of money, acquiring social status, and leading a prosperous life.
There’s nothing wrong with this outcome-based notion of success. However, if we subject our success to a moral test, we should ask the following questions:
- How did we achieve the goals?
- Did we adhere to our values or principles?
- Or, did we compromise our values and violate our principles?
- What price did we pay to achieve a morally diminished success?
- What did we regret doing or not doing?
Real and lasting success is not about outcomes; it’s about doing the right things consistently in the pursuit of chosen tasks that are aligned with our core values.
What is the right thing to do?
The right thing is subjective but is always rooted in our core values, whatever the task and whatever the challenges that confront us.
The right thing may or may not bring us material prosperity, but it never swerves from the path of integrity. It always includes an element of personal sacrifice and service to others.
If you’re a teacher, the right thing to do is teach with passion, holding nothing back, and serving the average and weak students by walking the extra mile. It’s updating knowledge and skills. Money is important, but it is not the sole consideration for working.
If you’re a medical professional, the right thing to do is to serve selflessly, alleviate pain and suffering to the extent possible.
Noble professions like teaching and caregiving always involve personal sacrifice.
If you're a policeman or policewoman, a judge, or a bureaucrat, the right thing to do is serve people to the best of your ability without misusing your powers.
The above examples are only illustrative. Whatever we do or however we live, there’s always a right thing and a right way to do it.
“There is only one success — to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
A successful life is a good life or a good enough life that does the right thing to the best of one’s ability, anchored on values, in a spirit of sacrifice and service, and without any regrets about moral transgressions.
The daily little acts of heroism and selfless service performed by millions of unseen, ordinary men and women have moved and will always move the wheels of civilisational progress.
“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” (George Eliot, quoted in intellectualtakeout.org)
The hidden lives of people who lived on their terms are the true success stories.
Thanks for reading!
