What Does Success Mean? Living Your Own Life VS Living to Meet Others’ Expectations
It’s 7.30 in the morning, the alarm starts ringing, you’re want to snooze it but you know that you just can’t, Another day of work, another day of wearing a fake smile, and putting up with people’s meaningless talks. Getting out of bed while your mind is telling you not to, and brushing your teeth while all of the existential questions running through your head.
What am I doing? Do I have to do this? Do I enjoy it? Perhaps questioning your whole existence and your life meaning. Deep down you know the answer; which is a clear no. Yet, you have your internal rambling voices telling you to get up, move on, this is how life is, and how things are supposed to be. Well, I have something to tell you, no, it is not how life is, neither how things are supposed to be.
I get it, I totally do! A few years ago, I used to work in an international company, got high payment considering my age, a good position heading towards a managerial role, had friendly colleagues with whom we turned to be lifetime friends, alongside with achieving growth and self-actualization. Do you think I was happy? You guessed right! No, I was not.To make things clearer, I was never that person who goes with the flow, following an outdated 10 years old plan, or have a fixed image of how a perfect life should be (or that’s what I thought at the moment), not easily influenced by society nor blindly following customs and traditions. Yet, deep inside there has always been this voice saying I am not doing enough, questioning what I should be, reproaching me for how I should step up in the race and get the “Golden Medal”.
This elicited a lot of frustration, I was beating myself up, guilt-tripping for lacking the motivation, and refusing to take any step further. At the end of the day, all I wanted was out! Just OUT!
A lot of misery is rooted in the misperception of success, success is defined as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”, the words aim and purpose are clearly with indefinite articles, meaning that, it’s unspecified and obscure. Yet, success in our society entails a certain checklist of preset goals, a relationship status, an early promotion or an acquisition of materialistic objects are all predetermined goals for us. Soul searching success is left aside, rarely spoken about, and underestimated by the vast majority. You may relate to these questions; did you buy a house yet? Perhaps this car? When are you becoming a manager? No spouse yet, I hope you find one soon!
How did this definition “an accomplishment of an aim or purpose” become this solely materialistic list in which people compete to accomplish? It’s deviant, yet normal to find a society with such similarities in dreams, aspirations, and future outlooks. Between setting an age limit to achievements and measuring success against acquired positions and materialistic acquisitions, dreams are lost, hopes fade away, and the concept of individualism becomes blurry for most of us.
We are diverse creatures by nature, differences inherent among people, thus, each person is unique and valuable. This should result in different aspirations, dreams, and several perspectives on life. Hence, alternative meanings of success should emerge and various definitions shall be adopted — if we were to tune into our human nature.
As society has already determined the elements in which success is measured against, raising to this bar means you are successful, failing to meet the bar means you are doomed and failure! Such a fertile ground to kill individuality and exalt misery.
Defining your meaning of success means that to start living a life based on your own terms and expectations. Success is your personal growth on the terms and pace that suits you. It can be that healthy-routine you have adopted or decorating your private space to blossom your creativity. It can be choosing to live a slow-paced life in a simple town leaving behind the city chaos. Or to maintain strong ties with this intellectual group of friends with whom you feel connected, accepted, and free. The formula is quite simple; if it makes you happy, it is a success.
Once you define your meaning of success, you start taking steps forward to accomplish YOUR goals. once you free yourself from the limitations of what others perceive success as, you get the opportunity to know what matters to you, and stop chasing what doesn’t — things that once meant something eventually will become meaningless. You were pursuing dreams that are not yours. Unveiling what matters to you will add a different flavor to your days. Measuring success will be simply reflecting on when you first started, seeing your progress and the leaps that you took to get where you are today.
Defining success to you is not a way of living a more meaningful or fulfilling life, it’s the essence of life itself. Living continuously to meet expectations that are not yours, means living a life that is not yours.
