Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Subjectiveness of Success

“One way to work the system is to work the system. The other way is to refuse to work it.”

~Seth Godin

True success is how we—at peace with ourselves—would define it. Not as the world, in twisting our arms behind our backs, does.

It’s good, at this point, for our spiritual survival, to reject our world’s claims on our desires for success. Instead of working the system in order to work the system, we can wrest the control and go against the flow of the popular world. Now, that is difficult.

But success must still be a valid concept, and without the world what is it?

Success may well be being as comfortable as we can in our own skin—in our identity in God.

Success As We Might Personally Define It

Predisposing success is the meaning behind it. What are our lives without purpose and meaning? When we find our purpose, and we live with meaning toward that end, success is merely milestones and time away. Success is inevitable.

Our frames for meaning are the critical issue. Are they ours or another person’s or borrowed from our world?

If we’ve allowed other people or the world to set our frames for meaning, and just about all of us have, we stand only to be disappointed. Rarely does a dream connected with another’s heart, or the world, line up with a cogent sense of meaning.

We might, otherwise, view a certain life as successful and transpose ourselves into such a life, without thinking whether it’s practical or achievable for us or not—or, pertinently, whether it’s ‘us’. Many take this route end up disappointed and envious of others’ lives, not having lived their own. Where success could have been achieved if life was viewed differently, such success is no longer available because of the choices made long ago. Yet, it’s never too late to change—and chase the dream.

Learning To Live Our Own Lives

The golden secret of life is to discern what our own hearts are telling us and to have the freedom to follow our heart, without other people or external influences forcing us another way. Many people haven’t had the choice. Their dreams were usurped from early on. They were made to live the dreams of another or to chase a mirage.

Now is the time to be released from this maze without meaning.

Learning to live our own lives, defining our own version of success, which derives meaning that only we can validate, is a secret to a blossoming life. This is about releasing the brakes on those pent-up dreams; it’s giving voice to repressed goals. When we chase it, we chase our own happiness. Only we can define our own success.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

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