What is success?

The Poppy

The Poppy – Success – Do you dream of adulation? Applause? Doesn’t the Poppy, source of lifesaving modern analgesic morphine, represent eternal sleep and endless dreaming? Greeks and Romans used these orange and red flowers as offerings to the dead – Westerners emblazon them on tombstones. Could it be that the very idea of “success” is something of a mirage?

Success Is However You Define It – Abraham Lincoln famously said people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If we define “success” as adulation by others haven’t we given away ultimate power over our lives? Many people define success in material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while admitting nobody “needs” that much money. They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I judge them to be “unsuccessful.” Clearly the most important person to please is yourself and the challenge is: are you content?

Challenge – If success is “arrival”, doesn’t that imply a “finish line”? Do you really want to be finished? Do we want to be in constant progress, just reaching for the goal – or does that imply a treadmill? A “rat race”, in fact? Isn’t the ultimate success “contentment”? To be content we have to assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps. Sometimes we discovered something even more wonderful than we didn’t even know we were searching for.

Danger – Our society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is you comparing your INSIDES (i.e., how you feel) with everyone else’s “outsides” (i.e., how they LOOK.) You can see that’s nonsensical. We don’t see each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.

Opportunity – Feel compassion for other’s hurt and struggle. Feel compassion (and forgiveness) for your own hurt and struggle. Assess your place on life’s path. Maybe you’re still on the edge of some great discovery, if so, keep going! Maybe it’s time to take tock of how far you’ve come and have a look at the big map. I like resting, thinking, reading and writing. I do exactly what I want to most days, surrounded by love. Feels like success to me.

Meditation –

#Haiku: Success

Mountain summits
Have another side
Where sun shines
And gravity
Helps