In our quest for success it’s not about money
alone but the satisfaction we can find; one cannot be achieved without the
other and we struggle to have both. You’d run several businesses, change jobs
and careers continuously, and you are still not satisfied. You are like the
person who is lost in the desert and cannot find his way home and keeps
wandering and wasting his life. We see it with workers who often deliver
poor services and with the boredom shows on their faces and how they are
threatened with their job before they work; they can’t wait to close and go
home. Their favorite mantra is ‘I hate this job!’.
“People say
that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what
we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being
alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have
resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the
rapture of being alive.”
~ Joseph Campbell
Yet, that person who keeps
looking, when he finds it makes us marvel. One moment he looked insignificant with
the basketball team because his height and weaknesses betray him, all of a
sudden become respected because of his power with books. She is terrible with
math and in class she can do only one insignificant thing, draw. Her peers
think of her as somebody who won’t amount to anything in life. After some years
of graduation, she is going places with her ability to draw. You can draw too,
but it doesn’t bring you anything.
The truly successful people
that we see and read about have passion and love for their jobs. As far
as they are concerned it is not work, it is enjoyment; they can almost feel the
work within. You take it away from them and you’ve stolen the ‘life’ out of
them - they become dead wood. Try to copy them and you might not measure up in
anyway; that work is not meant for you, your best is to be an average. The fact
that you want to do your own thing doesn’t mean you can just do anything and be
successful; there is something unique to you that you can do. Trying just
anything might end up making you look unintelligent. Your friends might be
doing well because they’ve hit the jack pot of their destiny.
Anything that you do that would be successful is
that work that you have passion and love for, a job that gives you a sense of
purpose and fulfillment. You find it is the one thing that makes you happy, it
is so easy for you to have success with but others chasing you lose their
breath and are left behind. You love it and you can do for free without been
paid and you don’t care. Money alone is not enough, it is similar to a
young girl married to a rich old man with everything and yet she is not
satisfied.
Before we get too idealistic let’s take some
caution and maintain some balance. Let’s not make ourselves and families suffer
because of our dream life. You must not struggle with finances hence do
something to support yourself; your education must not suffer. The old saying
applies here, ‘he that is down needs fear no fall’. When you have nothing or
you are a starter, it is easier to follow your dreams but it is not so for
those who are into big jobs. While doing the big jobs they might be unhappy but
the security of their current position creates a disengagement problem. If you
are lucky you can keep it and still follow your dreams but with some they have
to quit entirely.
Most of the time, our dreams are divine and
outward. It goes beyond you and your family to bless human kind; it could be an
invention that changes the ways of people completely and make their life
better. I believe the people who were able to have close to 100% success with
their dreams are those we call stars, divas, legends and so on. It’s how you
are successful in being a champion of your own self. Few people understand you;
the light is often visible to you alone like Paul on the road to Damascus.
There are two schools of thought; one says true
success comes from our own effort and the other it says happens to you on its
own accord. None is wrong but they have their consequences; what if you decide
to wait and your time never comes or it comes when you are so old that you
can’t enjoy? With your own effort you might struggle for years and achieve
nothing but I prefer this one; though I achieve nothing I shall feel better
because I know I tried. I prefer to use my own effort and so I believe in
Napoleon Hills’ saying, ‘we are the master of our fate, the captain of our
souls’.
I don’t know about you but I have a sense of
mission; I would feel like a failure if I work and live well and not impact
my society. To me, having my car and house and thriving alone would make me
feel like I have achieved nothing. What would be a joy to me is helping peoples
businesses succeed, paying others school fees, teaching people to live decently
and to believe that life can be worth living, opening companies and giving
people jobs and the like. It’s my dream and it’s been in my heart for
years and it is my burden.
To be continued.
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