How can one define success?
“Be successful in life” is something I have been hearing since I learned the word and till a few months back I had notions of what was successful and what isn't.
I am somebody who left home after my graduation to a central university in search of so called 'success' and much to my surprise, I found the same lot in the University. Everybody wants to be successful in life and everybody has different notions of success. I remember my cousin brother crying the day he got his CBSE results stating he didn't get a 90% but only 87, whereas others who scraped the 90 percent mark were the cream of the lot and the most successful. For some it is the number of medals that adorn the wall, for a journalist it might be the number of bylines s/he can gather, for some it might be the pay he or she gets, or it could be the car they drive, the grandeur of the house they live in...there are so many notions.
I define success now as satisfaction or happiness, not huge money, not owning a top end mobile, not having money to travel by flight...its just plain happiness.
Yesterday I talked to one of my old friends over the phone. She was my classmate during graduation. After graduation when many of her friends including me chose to leave their hometown of Kerala and go to any corner of the country in pursuit of success, she decide to stay back home with her mom and brother and be a dutiful daughter/sister. She did her B ed from one college in the city itself and started teaching school children when others boasted of jobs in MNC's and post graduation degrees from the best colleges in the country. Now she is married, teaching in one of the better known schools in her hometown, taking care of her husband and ready to welcome another life into this earth and be a good mother...she is damn happy. To me, she is a success in life so far and I pray she remains this way...
This post is dedicated to her who made me rethink what success and true happiness is...
To quote one of my other friends “Why do we work? Why do we have friends? Why do we travel? Why do we do whatever we do? So that at the end of the day when we go to sleep we have a smile on our face...”
Success, happiness, experience...they're all relative. And yes, happiness is definitely a state of mind. You can't measure it, and you'll be better off in life if you don't try to benchmark success.
ReplyDeleteHappiness I believe is a confluence of factors. All these unmeasurable qualities are a state of mind. The society we live in tries to benchmark success and I believe everybody does knowingly or unknowingly.
ReplyDeletearun the post remnds me of what your dad told us when i came over to your place in december. 'I wanna to do btr, i wanna do 50% more stories than i did last year at the same time right now i'm a happy man for i got peace of mind for i'm satisfied wit what i got'
ReplyDelete@ Soliloquy: Thats what I call passion man. He is a happy man with what he has, but he wants to do more cause he has such a genuine liking for it!
ReplyDeleteAh the eternal debate between success and happiness.. very subjective issue.. I today believe satisfaction is a bad thing.. It breeds complacence.. and mediocrity.. I used to think otherwise earlier.. But now that I am in the rat race, thoughts have changed.
ReplyDelete@ Atticus: Even the word mediocrity is a product of the word success. It depends on how you define success I believe. If one can be happy and satisfied with what one does I believe that cane be called success, just that the magnitude varies.
ReplyDeleteGood one. I dont even know why we complicate things. Nice reminder of the really important things in life :)
ReplyDeletewhen you told me there is a quote at the end of your new jot, i was curious.
ReplyDeletehappiness. yes its the yardstick, for me!
@ Vishnu: Curiosity is not a sin. Let happiness always be the yardstick!
ReplyDeletesuccess is not relative, its absolute :)
ReplyDelete