Success. We chase it all the time. More importantly, we link our happiness to it. Our happiness depends on it so heavily. So heavily that our existence starts losing its meaning without success. In fact the quest for success in life becomes the sole aim for our existence.
So what is success? I wish I knew it in definite terms. But let me make an attempt. Success to me is being able to attain what I aimed to attain. And this is a very loose definition. So being able to reach the office when I want to reach there be called a success? I am sure people would laugh at this statement. So may be that people are also linking success with the degree of difficulty associated with attaining / achieving what you aimed at. Okay, so I will make another attempt. Is being able to reach office in time during rush hours be termed as success? ... Hmmm...People are still going to smile at this statement. In that case, probably it is not just the degree of difficulty to achieve. A success is a success only if fewer people can achieve it. So what about commuting to office which is located in a city some 100 km away? Will it then qualify for being termed as success? NO? Ohhh people are just impossible to please. So what more? Success should bring rewards as well. Else it is not a success. To sum this up, commuting everyday to an office 100 km away during rush hours is NOT a success !!
The whole point which I keep getting is that it is the people around you who keep defining what your success should look like. And no matter what you do, they will keep changing the parameters of success for you. It ends up like chasing a moving target or a mirage. You attach your happiness to this moving target. And the target would have changed when you reach there. And happiness remains still so elusive. And you remain exasperated as ever!!
My take on this whole concept of success and happiness is that they should be treated as two mutually exclusive entities. A person has the basic right to be happy and remain happy irrespective of his score in the success department. Success definitely brings joy and associated benefits. But it can not be the reason to feel deprived of happiness in absence of success. Any views from any one?
Success and happiness is eternal feeling of the “self” for the “self”, It is within and we don’t need to look around. Unfortunately, we look for and heavily rely on worldly opinion of this very natural and personal self feeling.This is like an altered perception ( I am successful and happy only if others think so..) of the reality ( I am successful and happy if I think so..) and to that extent most of us ( Including me !! ) are schizophrenic about our feelings…This is nothing but the mental illness and self realization can only cure this permanently.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. We keep looking for approval from outside to consider something as success. But the fact is that we become very obsessed for this external approval and keep deferring the happiness which is such an inner emotion. We all see hundreds of unhappy faces while being in any public place. It looks like a big "Conditions applied" has been attached to anyone who wants to feel happy.
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