"If life ended at 30, how would you define success?"

A friend posted this as his status over Facebook. I won’t answer it but it did spark some interesting thoughts over preparing dinner with Elain.

Success has an absolute definition:

  • the correct or desired result of an attempt (Merriam-Webster)
  • favorable or desired outcome (Merriam-Webster)
  • ;also: the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence (Merriam-Webster)
  • the accomplishment of an aim or purpose (Oxford)
  • Success comes from the latin word successus: to advance, to climb

Success and Desires

Success mainly deals with a ‘desired result’ – in short, it goes around the concept of achieving a 'desire’. A specific 'desire’ has 'value’. Merriam-Webster and most of the world couples the word 'success’ with money, power, control and fame; obviously stems from the fact that everyone desires and values those 4 things above all else.

It is kind of self-centered; success is about us getting goals, it is about achieving what you value.

Weird thing is most of the time we may already have succeeded in achieving our goals, but the problem is we value something else, that’s why sometimes we feel like a failure. The world has tricked us into buying things we don’t need, achieving certain positions and behaving in a certain way to be 'valuable’ just because the 'world says so’. The funny thing is: we envy, and there are times we never get contented.

Be very careful with 'success’, because we might be succeeding in things that are apparently not valuable after all.

So.. at 30, what do you value?