09-10-2016, 08:21 AM
I prefer to think of success as an unatainable ideal that keeps us always trying for more of whatever it is we have decided is important in our lives. That's why it's so hard to define. For some, it might be the driving need to be as rich as possible. For others, fame. For me, I am driven by the insatiable and impossible urge to learn...everything. For others it might be the need to be as loved and well-thought of as possible.
I think the idea of success also comes with an unspoken finish line which is why you see billionaires continuing to fight and scrape for every dime, or world famous people doing everything they can to stay in limelight. We have this imaginary line in our brain, this point where we would be satisfied at a job well done...and what's left when we reach it? Death? Who wants that?
My personal version of success would be a comfortable home with people who were happy to see me coming. Pretty simple on paper but way harder than it looks. I'd like to think there are a few who remember me fondly and that I've left the world better than I found it so far, but that happy home part is an elusive dream. And I'm okay with that because No one really wants to get to that finish line too soon, right? I see people again and again who make raising their kids their finish line, and then in twenty or 25 years they flounder not knowing what the hell to do next.
TL: DR version
Success is that always just-out-of-reach personal idea of perfection that gets us out of bed in the morning.
I think the idea of success also comes with an unspoken finish line which is why you see billionaires continuing to fight and scrape for every dime, or world famous people doing everything they can to stay in limelight. We have this imaginary line in our brain, this point where we would be satisfied at a job well done...and what's left when we reach it? Death? Who wants that?
My personal version of success would be a comfortable home with people who were happy to see me coming. Pretty simple on paper but way harder than it looks. I'd like to think there are a few who remember me fondly and that I've left the world better than I found it so far, but that happy home part is an elusive dream. And I'm okay with that because No one really wants to get to that finish line too soon, right? I see people again and again who make raising their kids their finish line, and then in twenty or 25 years they flounder not knowing what the hell to do next.
TL: DR version
Success is that always just-out-of-reach personal idea of perfection that gets us out of bed in the morning.
Thank god I am oblivious to the opinions of others while caught in the blinding splendor of my own cleverness.