"Success is a delusion, and so is failure. "
People tend to think that success is like walking to top of a mountain, and all you have to do is to keep climbing up to the summit. But they forget that it is not the end, it cannot be the end, because no mater how high a mountain you climb you will have to come down.
So does achieving your dream, means nothing? Lets look at this objectively. Let us say you have a dream to be a millionaire by the age of 30, and you make it, Do you think it will make you happy? In most cases what you will want is to make 10 million by the time you are 40. So what happened here is that, you tried to hit a moving target, and your definition for success changed. It is not anyone's fault, It is how the human mind works.
Lets try another example, one social worker wanted to feed the poor and he managed to adopt one village and changed their life for good, but now he wants to do more (which is perhaps very good), and the society will laud him, some even citing him to be very successful, but he thinks he can do more or perhaps could have done more, so success still eludes him.
So what is success? We can think of some of the attributes of success:
Trying to define success now (in geeky terms):
Success is a observation of a state of mind, the entropy of which is lower than the current state of mind, but not zero and the frame of reference is biased.
In plain English, It is ones idea of being an ideal world, the place where one wants to be with the thought that getting there will bring him/her to the race line, only to discover that it is just another pit stop.
- If you think you are successful you have already lost it, (read no more)
- If you think getting money/finding love/job/car will make you successful, you could not have got it further wrong.
- If success is to prove your worth to others, that is a wrong answer too.
- If you think that success needs an approval from others, that is a wrong choice again.
People tend to think that success is like walking to top of a mountain, and all you have to do is to keep climbing up to the summit. But they forget that it is not the end, it cannot be the end, because no mater how high a mountain you climb you will have to come down.
So does achieving your dream, means nothing? Lets look at this objectively. Let us say you have a dream to be a millionaire by the age of 30, and you make it, Do you think it will make you happy? In most cases what you will want is to make 10 million by the time you are 40. So what happened here is that, you tried to hit a moving target, and your definition for success changed. It is not anyone's fault, It is how the human mind works.
Lets try another example, one social worker wanted to feed the poor and he managed to adopt one village and changed their life for good, but now he wants to do more (which is perhaps very good), and the society will laud him, some even citing him to be very successful, but he thinks he can do more or perhaps could have done more, so success still eludes him.
So what is success? We can think of some of the attributes of success:
- Success is just a state of mind, which like everything else is dynamic.
- Success is delusional, the more you achieve the more you want.
- Success is a personal opinion, You may find 'The social worker' to be successful, he may find the job is still half done.
- Success is subjective, A kid in third world country might find it as a big success to be able to go to school, while in a developed nation it is taken for granted.
- Success is not the opposite to failure, While this is not the right place to define failure, it is good to know, the 2 outcomes are not the same as 2 faces of a coin, One can be successful and a failure at the same time, "Successful entrepreneur, miserable father"
Trying to define success now (in geeky terms):
Success is a observation of a state of mind, the entropy of which is lower than the current state of mind, but not zero and the frame of reference is biased.
In plain English, It is ones idea of being an ideal world, the place where one wants to be with the thought that getting there will bring him/her to the race line, only to discover that it is just another pit stop.
No comments:
Post a Comment