VICTORY IS FOR EVERYONE

There is something to be said about the word, ‘Success’, you see. Some see it as the final landmark of contentment; some remarkability that accompanies this satisfaction. The knowing of having reached the prime of human stature and pleasure. Some see it as having uprooted every odd in their lives and having gained the fruit of their labor; in name it is wealth. A healthy family, a lavish lifestyle and no worries to the end of your days. There is also something to be said about the inevitable silent ache that grows over you in the pursuit of it. The seemingly never-ending ladder to reach this high pedestal. The hunger for it begins to consume you instead. And then, the misery no one will speak of, because then they will have to admit that this high pedestal grows only higher the more they chase it. For some, it is difficult to see that success in its essence is subjective; the pedestal is subjective. 

Society’s definition of success shouldn’t have to dictate what makes you feel accomplished and successful. There is no single ladder that we all must climb all the way to a certain goal, or some final landmark. You can have your own aspirations and feel comfortable and content with what you do for work, what your hobbies are, how your relationships go and how you live your life in a way that is sustainable and healthy, and most importantly, happy to you. Success is natural. Manifestation is not a trying process. When you begin to think in those patterns, you will uncover a spark of motivation to act, to spot opportunities, to create your dream life. 

To a baker, success may mean something different. There is no big or small role. While baking a cake every minute ingredient does its part, some ingredients are used more than the other, yet they alone are not enough to finish it. Each ingredient adds flavor and completion to the final bake. And so, to the baker, success means the soft, well baked cake coming freshly out of the oven. To the baker, success means the customer buying it.

To a farmer, success would be a good harvest. The fruit of the labor borne out of countless hours on the field, under the withering sun. There is better contentment to be had with honest work and honest pay. And so, to the farmer, success means just that. To the farmer, the pedestal has already been reached, and it is just as accomplished as any luxurious lifestyle. 

And to me, success means something much simpler, even next to a well baked cake or a good harvest. To me, success has already made its home in the little things I do in everyday life. It is in the way I weigh myself, where I find contentment, or I make it when I cannot find it. It is in the unadulterated happiness that comes in eating fresh fruit. Success is there when I finish a good book, as I let the waves of accomplishment wash over me. It is there when I compliment people and I get to see genuine smiles. 

There are so many simple threads of interwoven acts of life that make it appealing to want to live in, and I look to those threads instead of the ones gone rough and awry. I do not have the time to be forlorn, when I have the choice to not to be. And success, I dare say, is there when that choice goes well. 

Most people don’t have their life together as they seem to do. We are all going through the motions, most people are just trying to navigate life and never really figure what it is about because life itself is about constant change, and we need to let go of that need to control it. We need to let that ache rest. The idea that all people do so and that you are being left behind is simply not true. There is no timeline for achievements in life, for success, especially when those things have different meanings to everyone. There is no final landmark. Make peace with the one that brings you the calm of it.

Hence, make home with your own nature. If you like the waters within you to run slow and steady, let them. If you enjoy depth, don’t force yourself to seek breadth. Dive as deep as your breath allows you. If you prefer single tasking to multi-tasking, stick to your guns. Being relatively unmoved by rewards gives you the incalculable power to go your own way. Success in its essence is subjective, and thereby for everyone.