How do you define success in life?
By Andrew R. Duckworth
I was once exposed to one of the greatest pieces of wisdom one can impart to another and I have carried it with me ever since. But perhaps rather than relay it word for word, I’ll get right to the heart of the matter.
I define success differently than you, differently than anyone, in fact. And you, whether you realize it or not, define success differently than anyone else. We all have our own personal goals in life, and perhaps we have a goal to transcend this life and make it to the next—a valuable goal indeed. But how I define success is of little importance to anyone else. For all you know, I secretly dream of owning a Lamborghini, dressing in an Armani suit, and owning a three story mansion across a few acres of land. None of those are true, but would it matter if they were true or not?
And in that question is the heart. Success can’t be limited to financial wealth, travel destinations, etc. If success is limited as such, it seems to me to be a very poor way of measuring success. But that is only an opinion derived from my own measure of success.
My own measure of success is based on what sort of person I am and what sort of person I become. If I stay the same as I am at this current moment for the rest of my life, I will tell you now I will have failed miserably. Because my measure of success is based on transformation. The more I learn, the more my measure of success changes. On some days, I fail terribly. On other days, I am so successful I surprise even myself. I am not so concerned about having the nicest things, or the nicest house, or the nicest car. Rather, who am I as a person? And, given all of those things, would I be a better person for it or would I become a terrible person? It’s a question worth asking and I ask myself questions like that a lot. If it’s things that are important to me, how do I see others? Do I measure their value based on the things they have? If I live the rest of my life and never become the type of person who judges others based on the things they own, I tell you, I would consider myself successful. I would have succeeded in not becoming a monster.
Success to me, as opposed to my younger and dumber days, means living a meaningful life—one not dependent on what a person has and more dependent on who a person is—who I am. If I live the rest of my life knowing that I have a thing or two to learn from another person, I would consider myself successful. If I become the closed-off and prideful man who believes they have all of life figured out, I would consider it a failure. But if I ever get to that point, I doubt my standard of success would matter much.
