What is success? To you it may mean something totally different than how I envision it. This is because success means different things to different people. For some, success may simply be achieving more than their parents ever did, for some it is getting a degree, for others it may be developing good relationships with people or managing a character flaw and for some success is having a lot of money and while for others it is devoting their lives to the needs of people. Everyone has their own way of defining success and our definition is usually based on factors in our lives like how we grew up or challenges we may have faced.
Everyone has the right to define success their own way but I have a suggestion on one way to not define success and that is through the lens of other people. Success should always be what it means to you and not how other people define it. This does not mean you should not live a selfless life, it just means that you should not allow anybody to fit you into their own definition of success. The reason is simple, as long as you keep seeing success from another person’s point of view; you will never actually feel successful.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics recently came to an end and I kept wondering if there was any other set of inspiring people like athletes. As you watch them compete, you cannot help but be amazed. They spend so much time training, most times every day to become masters at their sport and that to me is awe-inspiring. I noticed something sad during the Olympics though that made it hard sometimes to be totally happy for the winner. This usually occurred during the gold medal match when it was guaranteed that someone will take home the silver and another the gold. What you discover during games like that was that some of the athletes that came away with the silver medal would be devastated. I understand the reason behind this as they have spent years and years training to reach their elite level only to “fall short” of the gold medal and they would often use words like “disappointed” or “unhappy” but in those moments something is forgotten and that is the fact that they are winners too.
But this is the nature of sports, while there are many celebrated winners; some walk off as the “losers” in the game. The point I’m trying to make here is this: the win or lose mentality is great for sporting events but it should not be applied to real life because if we look at life through the lens of beating others, we’ll never be truly satisfied because even if you “win” once you’ll still have another round to play and you may be the loser then. Instead, it is better that we view our lives and success as a journey, understanding that people will arrive at different times but we will all ultimately get to where we need to be.
It is good to have our own definitions of success but it will remain frustrating if that definition is based on besting another person. Our life is important and what we do with it matters but it will never feel that way as long as we keep the mentality that what someone else is doing is better because when we do that, we’re choosing to see success through the lens of other people. Doctors, nurses, teachers, police men and women and fire-fighters are true heroes but this does not reduce the importance of taxi drivers (you can count on them to move around when you don’t have a car of your own), shop owners, chefs, content creators or tailors. What you do and who you are is important as long as it is your own definition of success and so whether you’re a career woman or a stay-at-home mum or both, as long as you’re successful by your own standard that is all that matters.
So, stop comparing yourself to anybody because you will always find somebody “greater” than you, in fact there is someone more beautiful than the most beautiful woman in the world, we just haven’t found her yet. Let us always strive to be the best that we can be instead of striving to be better than others. We can have role models and people we look up to but let us remember not to view success through the lens of others. Growing up, there was this really popular debate topic titled “a farmer is better than a doctor; for or against” and I know what you’re thinking but remember that even doctors have to eat and farmers get blisters that need the doctor’s attention.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
Philippians 2:3 KJV