Success ?

In one’s life, how do we define ‘success’? We often hear people quoting phrases like “You’re a successful person in life!” Is ‘success’ based or judged on one’s achievements in life? Think it has always been the case. You can easily witness in the media that high achievers are classified as successful people in life. But this kind of classification is fair and true to what extend?

‘Successful’ by word meaning in English language context refers to getting what you desire, or attaining your objective. What about the time horizon? Certain objectives are harder to met and require longer time horizon. Does it mean these people who attain these goals are more successful than those whose objectives are easier to attain and shorter in time frame?

Comparative mind sets in. Human beings classify success according to prestige and glamour of the underlying gains. A person who has 7C’s in life is considered successful? If so, success is merely on material gains in life. People view ‘success’ in different aspect and basis. This is true. But in a world like today, success is often judged upon material gains. For example, comparing two persons, a person who is a CEO and a runner. The latter is a top runner in his country. So who is more successful? The usual and common answer would be the CEO. Why is this so?

My viewpoint is that people can only witness each individual’s resulted success and achievements. However more importantly, is the underlying time and effort that has been taken to towards success. This timeless effort is seldom been understood. Successful people are such people with drive to succeed, putting in countless effort and time to work towards success. A CEO’s efforts and time to achieve such status might only be minimal. It could be a pass-down family business. A runner’s effort might be maximal. He could have trained harder than anyone. But nobody knows. In this context, he could be more successful than a CEO.
Now what about those who put in countless effort and time but couldn’t attain his goals? Are they considered unsuccessful?

“It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results.”