Defining Success

These times are competitive. I feel we are infected with the virus of discontentment. Nothing is what it should be. The neighbour has a bigger car, better house, vacations in Europe, in short; has it all. You compare yourself to these people and always fall short. There is that bad after taste when you meet someone, who you perceive has half your brain size and three times your pay cheque.

When I started earning, I used to imagine that the guy above my pay scale had it all. If I just had that much I would certainly be happy. Time went by and as I grew in my pay scale, the more discontent with it I became. There was always someone ahead of me, ahead in the game. There was always a better model of phone on the market, a new car, a new destination. Keeping up meant cutting throats to get to the top faster, earn more in order to acquire more. Material things, which give a huge high for a day and then the euphoria ends. We try to fill the inner vacuums of our life with things, feeling if we just had this one “Thing”, we will certainly be happy, finally content.

So who is truly successful? Capitalism would define a successful person as the one with the most material possessions. There is no doubt that for most things, having a stack of dough helps.  But suppose that you have reasonable means to a comfortable life. Where reasonable doesn’t not include every luxury but some; would you consider yourself a success or a failure?

In words of John Wooden, one should not try to compete with everyone, if you become too engrossed in the things over which you have no control it will adversely affect the things over which you do have control.  It is human nature to compare ourselves to others, it is when we feel the sting of jealousy that we need to step back and understand that we all are unique in our capabilities.  We all have our own crosses to bear, on the outside all we see in others is the perceived success that we want to see.

As long as we give our very best at everything we do we should consider ourselves successful.  There will be people who will have lost, having won and others who will be the real winners, although to others they may have lost. As long as at the end of the journey one can look back with contentment, you have lead a successful life.