“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.” Earl Nightingale
Yes, I know, sometimes it’s easier to blame it on that rascally, indefinable, elusive thing called ‘luck’, isn’t it?
But jokes aside, what is this equally hard-to-pin-down thing called ‘success’? Have you ever thought of yourself as a success? Have you ever done or ‘achieved’ anything that you would consider a success?
You must have heard the story about Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb. He was asked in an interview: How did it feel to have failed all those many times (reportedly in the vicinity of a thousand).
“Failed?” exclaimed Edison, “those weren’t failures! They were all the ways I learned how not to do it!”
Ah, yes. It’s hard to have that kind of attitude though, when a relationship has ended or you’ve been told you didn’t get that job or you just blew the diet plan yet again.
“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”
– Thomas J. Watson
Here are some dictionary definitions of success:
- The achievement of something desired, planned or attempted
- The gaining of fame or prosperity
- One that is successful
So, how about it? Would you consider yourself a success? Or do you think it would be more accurate to say that you have been successful on some occasions and not others?
It’s an important question to ask yourself because, you see, success and happiness have a lot to do with each other. Or at least, your beliefs about success and happiness do.
Which brings me to the question in the title of this post:
What comes first, success or happiness?
Well, if you believe that success is the achievement of things, then it is more than likely that your happiness will depend on how successful you consider yourself.
If you get what you desire, aim for, work for, in other words, if you succeed, then you will be happy. This kind of belief demands certain outcomes and your happiness is contingent upon securing those outcomes.
But is there a different way of looking at things? Could one be happy regardless of the outcome? Put it this way, would you rather be happy regardless of the outcome?
I know I would. In fact, my life experiences have shown me that there is no other way of being truly happy and staying happy. I would go so far as to say that being peaceful and happy is the greatest ’success’ one could have or be!
So, I’ll finish with a rather nice quote to which I’ve made a slight adjustment to make it more gender inclusive:
“When a person feels throbbing within them the power to do what they undertake as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.”
Orison Swett Marden
Notice, this kind of ’success’ and happiness isn’t contingent upon an outcome. Rather success and happiness are experienced in the enthusiastic and fully committed (passionate) ‘doing’ of something!
Love always, Lucy
Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!
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