Who Is Successful?

The one with all the riches? The one with great health? Or the one with freedom to spend time at their leisure? What was once considered success maybe labelled toxic today. And that which someone aspires maybe what someone else despises!

Historically success had a very clear, narrow and rigid definition. As you started making a living, expectations were that your earnings double, assets grow commensurately and then an ostentatious display of this wealth would announc to the world that you had arrived!

As most of the world reeled under the aftermath of the world wars, famines and other such crisis of humanity; this seemed a clear path to success. You were to make your survival sustainable and lineage last. In a nutshell survival of the fittest, adapted by humans to meet their social expectations. Fair and square.

Conventional success called for conventional labels. And times have changed. We are no longer plagued by existential crisis. It is (some may say) an easier world to survive in today. Not many an educated graduates have to squander for the basics of Maslow’s hierarchy. But at the same time, basics remain the same for all. Those with a cushion, aspire a higher launch pad and can be choosy about what they want to succeed in. Those with a not so privileged start aim to be atleast ‘there’.

To those who can, should chase their aspirations. Should choose their passion over convenience. Not saying it would be any easy, rigour is expected when you want to make it long lasting and sustainable. Choose flexibility over rigidness and balance over obsession. To those who can dare, get uncomfortable making tough choices!