Success
Last night I started in on a book by Deepak Chopra called "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams". I must say, I'm a bit sceptical, but I'll wait until I finish the book to judge it :) Now on to the point of my post...Reading the book got me started thinking, what is success? Is it being successful in the business world? Is it making lots of money, having an awesome car and a million dollar house, having a hot wife, or is it being famous and admired? Or maybe for those less material, success is having deep and meaningful relationships with the ones you care about, or saving the world, I don't know. But I have the feeling that success is simply being happy. (I mean this kind of happiness) Which of course leads us back to the whole conversation on happiness, which I won't get into again ;) In that post, I kind of left it at the fact that I'm happy, I don't know why, or how, but I am and that's all that matters. Well, now it does matter! My curiosity has been aroused, and now I am on a quest to find out what makes me, and people in general, happy. (In case you didn't go to either of the links above, I am talking about happiness as "an attitude and a way of seeing the world rather than a warm, fuzzy feeling" as Rushan so aptly put it!)
And so the quest for the meaning and source of happiness and success begins! In the meantime, what do you consider success to be and what makes you happy, and if you are feeling adventurous, why?
And so the quest for the meaning and source of happiness and success begins! In the meantime, what do you consider success to be and what makes you happy, and if you are feeling adventurous, why?
First I just want to say that I am not so sure that my answer is all that different to this question as to your other question about music on aconsiderablespeck.org forums. I don't know that we can know exactly why we are happy, but it would be useful to be able to know how we can be happy...know what I mean?
To answer your general questions:
Success to me is simply an attitude. You can measure yourself by societal standards to determine successfulness, or you can measure it by how you feel. Success for me is not about money or hot wives or any of that stuff, it's not even about the "deep and meaningful stuff". Rather, it is about achieving just one of those things that I dreamed, just one of those impossibilities. One trip to Tibet, or one act of kindness that I thought beyond my limits. IMO, there is no grand success where you can say, "I'm at the top, I am where I always wanted to be". Life is a journey full of small successes, and these are the moments that we live for. The small bumps on the road, not the giant mountain in the distance.
Why? Because a little voice told me it should be so.
Happiness: If you are happy, good, it's time for a change.
If you aren't happy, fine, it's time for a change.
Sometimes we drag the world with us down our paths, and other times it feels like we'd rather just sit down and stop. But when it all comes together, we have to keep going. Again I think my answer to this is quite similar to the above on success. There is, IMO, no grand happiness at the end of the road. It is the happiness in each day, in each bump on the road that we live for.
In short, live for the small things in everyday, and you won't even realize that you are standing on a mountain.
hope that wasn't too repetitive
Posted by
Nick |
January 16, 2006 3:58 AM