To
succeed in life you need two things: Ignorance and Confidence. Mark
Twain.
What are
your thoughts?
This
is what I ended my blog with yesterday. I got a couple of responses to this question.
Sumit Singh, who is in Media Marketing with HT Media Ltd felt that success
means different things to different people. He believes that success from the
perspective of someone who is terminally ill will mean seeing the next morning.
Ignorance makes numbers irrelevant and confidence make it a byproduct.
My takeaway was clear. I learned that to be successful one has to come up with
their reasons and their own parameter to
judge success.
Yesterday
I mentioned my fascination with my aunt because she was settled abroad. It was
a big deal back then, it still is. I visited a few acquaintances and they
mentioned how they were enamoured by their brother’s son who spoke English with
fluency, another indicator of success, fluency in the English language. Material
Wealth has forever been a success parameter. However, the definition of material is
very different. When with some people,
wealth would mean branded goods, for others it may mean gold. Someone recently
celebrated their daughter’s 100 YouTube followers, or someone crossing 100000
likes on Quora.
Success
parameters are changing. So I wanted to go back to basics. I referred to what some
of the testaments on success were. Socrates in one of the story advised a young
man, when you want success as badly as you want air, you will get it. Bhagavad
Geeta professes action without expectation. Almost all religions have their
definitions of success, which not only impacts an individual but their
lifestyle and also how they view success.
Some
research studies claim, that religion influences an individual’s daily life
making them more engaged to extended families and more likely to volunteer. Compare this with this
girl who moved to Paris to progress her career.
How do you think her success parameters will be different from those or
people with religious inclinations as per the study.
One
thing is clear. It is very difficult to replicate success. One can replicate
position, wealth and status but replicating success is altogether a different
ballgame. It has to be personal.
The society I live in told me a few things about success parameters. Success means to
be very good in studies, find a job, get married, have kids and live your life
happily ever after. Now that I am
successful, I am everyday revisiting the parameters, to see why? Why society
did give me these parameters and why did I want so desperately to succeed.
What
did your society tell you about success?
Very true....success is personal to each individual. But we are often propelled by what others percieve as success. Its natural as a human being. Mynopinion is that these definitions change with every situation,every day. What one needs to do is to consciously decide what do they want for themselves, rathervthan going by the set standards, and that is not to say that these parameters don't have their merits. But letting them dictate one' entire thought process is a mistake. That said, you hit the nail on its head again Nupur. Bravo!!!
ReplyDeleteThe trick I guess is to let someone make informed choices. For example if i know that average grades but a happier version of me can also mean success or just a happier version of me irrespective of what it is defined as then i when I choose these options I will know that I took these decisions rather than was obligated to do so.
DeleteTo me success is to be happy with how my today has shaped out.
ReplyDeleteI agree Amita and that is what we need our children to understand every day. Success is not measured by marks but how one feels about the journey.
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