‘Success’, the word is not alien to us. Perhaps it is one thing that everyone in this planet desires. But do we know what exactly this thing we covet is? Many of us would say that, when people around the globe know your name, it is success and many of us would agree that when you have overflowing money in your bank accounts that is success. But is it?
After observing people around me, success according to them is achieved when one becomes famous or gets a fancy degree from a top college. But do these eligibilities account for what one’s success is or the success of him according to others? Does one require other people’s approval for his or her success? According to me when one considers himself successful just because others do, it is essentially just ‘passive’ success.
The real success is something that develops inside. This neither requires one to be rich nor does it requires one to be surrounded by paparazzi. What it is requires is the inner soul to be happy and content. What is the use of having all the so-called success when there resides emptiness inside. As quoted by Khalil Gibran —“bread baked without love is bitter bread that feeds half a man’s hunger”. This has a very profound meaning implying that success someone achieves in something he does not love is only partial success and the other half will be attained only after doing what the heart desires.
Sure, in today’s world, living in destitute means living a precarious life. But the passive part of success is something that can be achieved by hard work. As said by someone anonymous thinker, “success is a journey, not a destination”. This reflects that success is uncertain and never culminates. Even today if a survey is conducted for identifying a person’s inner satisfaction with his life, I firmly believe that the rags would outnumber the riches.
I personally might not have achieved any of the passive success but after falling in the team of failures many times, I have found out that it does not require someone else’s judgment for you to be successful. If I am happy with my life despite being nobody, I consider myself successful in life. Take this article for example, even if a single person reads and agrees with me, that’s success to me. This won’t make me rich or entail me of any kind of qualification, but it brings a smile to the face and that’s the foremost thing.
It is therefore time for people to judge themselves as no one else can. For those with piles of money and paucity of satisfaction, the question that lies ahead is:
ARE YOU SUCCESSFUL?