That prompted me to think what the word 'success' really meant to me.
After a couple of weeks, I felt I could write an essay on the subject and then post it to my sister to share with her. That same essay, somehow, grew to become a book. Yes, there is indeed so much to be said about success that only a book would have done justice to such an important topic.
But now, after many months of pondering over the word 'success', I think I can actually write a whole encyclopedia, with different volumes covering its various aspects:
Volume 1 - Success in Studies
Volume 2 - Success in Career
Volume 3 - Success in Love
Volume 4 - Success in Marriage
Volume 5 - Success in Family Life
Volume 6 - Success in Community Life
Volume 7 - Success in Leadership
Volume 8 - Success in Overcoming Difficulties
Volume 9 - Success in Self-fulfilment
Volume 10 - Success in Self-actualisation
Volume 11 - Success in the Spiritual Path
and I may just add a few more volumes along the way.
I have come to realise one thing though and that is, our lives are made up of many small successes or different phases of successes.
As little tots, we grappled with many things of the world that were new and unfamiliar to us such as crawling and walking, talking and eating solid food. Each time we managed to learn something new, we met with success. At that time, these successes didn't seem so minor at all. In fact, to be able to take his first step meant a great deal to a tiny tot, let alone to his parents, who would have been filled with pride and joy on watching baby achieve his first success in life.
As we grow older, we sometimes forget about our first steps in life, about learning to ride a bike, about passing our PSLE because they do not seem so important anymore when compared to the greater challenges we face today.
As adults, we fight monumental wars at work, we work hard to climb the corporate ladder, we try to strike a balance between career and marriage, some even have to contend with complicated or failed relationships, while others have to battle difficulties such as painful separations, fears and phobia or incurable illnesses.
Our minds get over-crowded with all of the hardship and adversities we face in our everyday lives that we forget about our past successes in life - they just don't matter anymore, they don't figure in our life anymore, they dim in significance.
What we really are forgetting here is this - that it would not have been possible for any one of us to achieve any of our later and subsequent successes had we not taken our first step!
But the question remains - what exactly does success mean? Ask 100 people and we will probably get 100 differing answers. This is because success can mean so many different things to different people, all of whom are living at different levels or phases of their lives. Not two persons in this world can be precisely the same.
But I do know one thing for sure. No matter which phase we are going through now, I believe that there will be a very strong correlation between our success determinator and our value system.
Ask yourself this. At this stage of your life , is it important to make your 1st million dollars by a certain year? Are you targeting to get married by a certain age? Is caring for your aged parents your first priority? Do you feel the need to fight the injustices of this world and right the wrongs?
Depending on what holds true for us in terms of values, the greatest success in life, to me at this moment, is to be able to put our finger to what we truly believe in, and then direct our whole being, all our strength, energy and ability towards achieving that belief. That belief is what I would refer to as our personal TRUTH in life.
Ideally, of course, our personal truth should consist of all the ingredients of the universal Truth.
Only when we have attained our Truth can we rest on our laurels and say to ourselves, 'I have been successful, at last!".
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