Finally What Is Success?
We hear about success everywhere. It is supposed to be the ultimate purpose of all actions we undertake. We use the word mechanically … We want to be successful professionals, form a successful partner, achieve financial success …
Yes, we want all of that, but what exactly do we call “success”? And above all, how to measure how much success is enough?
The idea that achieving success is “not having to worry about anything” has become widespread. That everything in your family works like clockwork or you can buy whatever you want without adding or subtracting. Let others praise your work and get a managerial position or be popular or famous. We could count on the fingers of the hand those who have all that.
Success or successes?
Have you ever wondered what success really is for you? The normal thing is that we join that common idea that tells us that those who have a lot are successful. We don’t usually stop to think about why so many rich, famous, award-winning, and seductive people live in the midst of unhappiness.
Although there is this more or less generalized pattern of “success”, in reality, what is successful and what is not depends a lot on subjective factors. Of feelings much deeper than the ability to buy and all those elements that we have already pointed out.
Each one should take on the task of defining and redefining throughout his life what success he is looking for. You cannot speak of one way of success as such, but of many ways in which people manage to be successful. And there are also different ways to be successful, depending on the context in which we live and the moment of life that we are experiencing.
The word “success” comes from the Latin “exitus” and means “end” or “term”. The English adopted this word as “exit” and it is what you see at the exit of any enclosed space. If we go to its original meaning, success is everything that puts an end to a lack or suffering.
Measure success
Just as there is no single meaning for the word “success,” there is no single way to measure it. In a strict sense, always, until the day of death, we will need something and the rumor of some suffering will haunt us.
If you look at life from the perspective of lack, you will never be the most beautiful or the most handsome, nor the richest, nor the most praised, nor the most popular. Because success and happiness are not synonymous. Success is a rather cumulative concept: having more of something, until reaching a supposed peak that is never the highest. Happiness, on the other hand, can be seen as the opposite: not needing anything else to feel good.
Success is a concept cleverly managed by the consumer society. It is one of those attributes that you acquire more to show it to others, than to enjoy it in the privacy of your heart. It is probably an idea that corresponds more to the sphere of power and the economy, than to the world of emotional well-being.
Achieving what we set out to do is not always the happy ending to a story. The old aphorism says “be careful what you wish for because you could get it”. I would add that it is never bad to achieve what you want, as long as it is a freely chosen goal and not imposed by a culture that seeks productivity and is based on competition between each other to achieve it.
In that sense, success is obtaining what is freely desired, with no other purpose than to be happier and sleep more peacefully.
