"Success is not a good teacher, failure makes you humble" - Shah Rukh Khan
We are inundated from every angle with society's definitions and visions of success. Acquire wealth, status, and power. Check all the boxes of cultural achievements. Constantly strive, acquire, and accumulate. Yet so much of this mainstream notion of success is a myth - an illusion that leaves many endlessly unsatisfied.
"I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time." - Herbert Bayard Swope
As the first quote reminds us, success is often a poor instructor. It breeds an inflated ego when we cling to conventional success metrics and are praised for attaining them. We become arrogant and complacent, falsely believing we've truly "made it" and have all the answers. On the other hand, failure is the great humbler that keeps us attuned to our limitations. Through failures, we receive our most meaningful lessons in perseverance, growth, and wisdom.
The second quote points to another insidious myth - the belief that success stems from people pleasing and obtaining universal approval. This is fundamentally backward. The greatest visionaries, change-makers, and leaders throughout history succeeded precisely by defying conventions and societal expectations. They had to become impervious to naysayers and persist in realizing their authentic visions, no matter how unorthodox. Paradoxically, playing it safe and striving for the bland middle ground is the surest path to an uninspired, unremarkable existence.
So, what is a more truthful, empowering way to view success? Rather than an endless chase to check arbitrary boxes, genuine success emerges from self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and living coherently with your deepest values and truths. It arises through cultivating wisdom, nurturing essential relationships, contributing something unique to the world beyond yourself, and focusing your passions on a life-affirming direction.
This path is not always glamorous or visible; it often looks quite ordinary from the outside. But those who achieve this profound inner success report an abiding joy, peace, creativity, and sense of meaning that external metrics could never provide. Ironically, when you align with and express your true essence, outward prosperity tends to flow naturally as a result.
At the end of our personal journeys, very few of us will feel that outdated, ego-driven notions of "making it" held any true, lasting significance. Instead, our real legacy will arise from the seeds we planted through courage, integrity, compassion, and living a life true to our highest ideals and soul's callings. That is the essence of genuine, enduring success.
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