How Do You Define Success
I spent a good part of my morning surfing more than a dozen sites about Success.
It is almost my lunch time but I am still nowhere near to a definition that fits all.
So I went back to basics and consulted the dictionary.
Here's what it say about success: "The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted.
" Plain, simple and direct to the point.
But I have this gut feel that something is still missing.
First: The word "achievement" has no qualifier that can connect it to something significant enough to make us happy..
Crossing the street on a rush hour is an achievement.
But is it as significant as being accepted into a post graduate slot in a top business school? On the other hand, our prisons are full of people who have achieved their criminal desires, our mental institutions with people who have achieved their delusional desires and I lost count of the pictures I hid in my FB page of pitiable achievements of people who could have spent their time better by pursuing significant achievements rather than advertising inane ones.
Second: Man is a complex animal.
He has various desires and these desires vary in intensity or priority between individuals.
Is success the satisfaction of all or part or half or what? Mark, the Evangelist, said: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" - Mark 8:36 The soul can either be taken as the immortal part of a person, or the "I" that inhabits the body giving it life, sight, hearing, thought, speck, intelligence, emotions, etc.
Either way, the soul is you and you have needs, e.
g.
personal, relationship, physical, social and financial, that have to be met in varying degrees to claim success in your life.
Achieving something significant in one part of your life, yet lag behind in others, can hardly be called "success.
" Or shall we go by their relative importance? Like in a scale of 1 to 10, how financially successful am I? Or how successful am I in my relationships? My healthy? My spiritual and social needs? Everybody wants to be happy and successful or successful and be happy.
But unless we can define happiness and success is precise terms, we shall always have that gut feel that something is missing somewhere.
That being said, I am inclined to define success as that feeling of joy emanating from within brought on by the knowing that we have achieved something significant, something that satisfies our sense as a person.
What do you think?
It is almost my lunch time but I am still nowhere near to a definition that fits all.
So I went back to basics and consulted the dictionary.
Here's what it say about success: "The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted.
" Plain, simple and direct to the point.
But I have this gut feel that something is still missing.
First: The word "achievement" has no qualifier that can connect it to something significant enough to make us happy..
Crossing the street on a rush hour is an achievement.
But is it as significant as being accepted into a post graduate slot in a top business school? On the other hand, our prisons are full of people who have achieved their criminal desires, our mental institutions with people who have achieved their delusional desires and I lost count of the pictures I hid in my FB page of pitiable achievements of people who could have spent their time better by pursuing significant achievements rather than advertising inane ones.
Second: Man is a complex animal.
He has various desires and these desires vary in intensity or priority between individuals.
Is success the satisfaction of all or part or half or what? Mark, the Evangelist, said: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" - Mark 8:36 The soul can either be taken as the immortal part of a person, or the "I" that inhabits the body giving it life, sight, hearing, thought, speck, intelligence, emotions, etc.
Either way, the soul is you and you have needs, e.
g.
personal, relationship, physical, social and financial, that have to be met in varying degrees to claim success in your life.
Achieving something significant in one part of your life, yet lag behind in others, can hardly be called "success.
" Or shall we go by their relative importance? Like in a scale of 1 to 10, how financially successful am I? Or how successful am I in my relationships? My healthy? My spiritual and social needs? Everybody wants to be happy and successful or successful and be happy.
But unless we can define happiness and success is precise terms, we shall always have that gut feel that something is missing somewhere.
That being said, I am inclined to define success as that feeling of joy emanating from within brought on by the knowing that we have achieved something significant, something that satisfies our sense as a person.
What do you think?