Having been brought up in a home where being successful meant finishing high school, going to University, getting a degree, finding a stable job that earns you decent money, finding a man, getting married, buying a house, having children, and living a happy life – all done in that order – one would think that I, myself, would have this opinion about what success means.
However, as the black sheep of the family, I have a completely different idea.
To me, success cannot be measured by society or anyone other than yourself. It means something different to everyone.
My personal view of success, is being happy and living a good life. That’s it. I don’t feel the need to tick boxes along the way to make sure I am on track; I don’t go ‘finished high school, tick, get into University, tick, make a lot of money, tick. I won’t know I am successful in life until I am lying on my death bed, where I can look about and see if I was happy or not, and whether my life was rich with good things.
Your view on success might be entirely different, and it’s supposed to be. Maybe you believe being successful means being the highest level manager of a particular company, or being a great parent, or getting married, or having a beautiful home.
Or maybe you are like my partner, who doesn’t have a clue what his idea of success is. He approaches life one day at a time, and if that day was a good day, then it was a success. Or if he managed to make it through a bad day without falling to pieces, then that was a success. He has little successes along the way, and I think he’ll look back one day and see this long line of things he has succeeded in, and deem his life a success.
The idea of success, in my opinion, stems from what will make you happy and what will make you feel accomplished. Not the things society says will make you accomplished, but what actually makes you feel like you’ve achieved something.
# Individual
# Success
# Money
# Accomplishments
# Opinion of yourself
# Food for thought