Success and Life

    There is a very strong urge in all of us to succeed and prove our worth to our family, friends, and colleagues, the people who make our world. It is thus usual to see most of us  arduously working towards achieving our so called success goals. But do we understand, what is success? or these are just attempts to accomplish what others expect from us and at seeking their approval of our actions. It is surprising to see how early in life even smallest of children loose their originality and indulge in activities to please  their elders. I am sure we all regularly experience this craving to measure our worth through what others say and during the course of our lives keep trying to see "our reflection in the eyes of other people". We always find ourselves chasing one achievement after the other and then to the next without identifying ourselves with our goals, always getting to them without feeling like as if we have made any progress.  And when we don’t achieve a particular goal, we feel like a failure, like there is something’s wrong with us and that there is some thing missing. Even the highly accomplished amongst us start having self-doubt and start questioning our ability. Some carry this actual or perceived rejection from others to the ridiculous extremes and go into depression and indulge in substance abuse. Only a small percentage of the one million strong Indian Army reach the rank of Colonel or a Brigadier, which by any standards is a great professional achievement however some in this rank too may consider themselves as under achievers because they are not Generals. The same can be said for many corporate vice presidents who have not made it to the top of the corporate ladder as the CEO's.

    Why does this happen? Why don't we ever feel satisfied with our achievements? Partly we may attribute this state to the human nature which has a tendency to be never satisfied but mainly it is because we do not understand success and more importantly we have not learnt to measure it correctly. In my earlier blog, I had identified "eternal happiness" as the purpose of human life and listed certain "happiness factors" those if pursued correctly can usher a feeling of  happiness and genuine success. While most cultures and individuals understand and give credence to these factors but are not able to maintain a healthy balance.  Majority of us give undue weightage to money and status. As per a survey published by the World Economic Forum 67% of American respondents who consider themselves as unsuccessful said that "money was the major missing part of their equation for success". I am sure the modern Indian Society is no different and similarly ignore all other factors of happy and meaningful life at the cost of pursuit for money, influence and power. Now some people may say that relegating money and status to the level of other happiness factors is absurd because as per them money, influence and power will automatically take care of other factors including relations and health. Is it true? Can money, power and influence be the most important factors defining success in our lives? Even if so, how much is enough? Someone will always be richer, more powerful and wield more influence than us thereby undermining our achievements.

 This premise of the modern human society therefore is is inherently flawed.  The key to successful and a happy life is to maintain balance in our lives while excelling in our chosen fields of work. But it is not easy to find and maintain this balance in life, moreover there is no standard pattern that fits all people cutting across the board. Our focus may vary slightly depending on the stage of life we are in, our  family background, cultural mindset, interests and so on but there can't be a significant deviation or bias towards one or two "success factors" because it will cause an imbalance and takeaway the satisfaction and happiness that should come with the amount of effort and hard work being put. In the accompanying chart, I have tried to quantify in percentage terms the amount of focus that may be required to put in by an individual in various stages of his life on various "success factors" to retain this balance. It clearly emerges that at no stage in life we should ignore any aspect of life.

  To summarise, a successful person is someone who pursues a profession which interests and excites him, earns enough to meet reasonable financial aspirations, has family and friends who look up to him and is sensitive to the spiritual side of life, environment and the Society.

This is a vey liberal measure of success hence in my opinion majority of us are successful and are leading meaningful lives. We only need to realise this truth, be happy and stop chasing mirages that do not exist.