Success

Just past splat

I always like this story related to success:

A man was searching for ultimate wisdom and enlightenment and took a year long journey to the deepest parts of the world.  While walking deep into a remote forest, he encountered a monk quietly meditating on a rock.  He asked the monk “Can you tell me where I can find ultimate wisdom and enlightenment?” The monk remained in a meditative state and pointed at a path. The man excitedly started running down the path and fell into a ditch. “Splat!” Slightly bruised, the man got up and hobbled back to the monk. He asked the monk again, “Can you tell me where I can find ultimate wisdom and enlightenment?” The monk again quietly nodded and pointed at the path. The man ran down the path again, carefully negotiated the ditch…and proceeded to fall into a deep hole. “Splat!”  Now all bruised with a twisted ankle, the man crawled back to the monk. He angrily said to the monk ”I asked you where ultimate wisdom and enlightenment was and all I did was fall into a ditch and a hole!”  The monk slowly opened his eyes and said “Yes, it is the right path… just after the ditch and the hole”.

And I just realized the above story is not about success. Or at least not the type of success I was, or maybe still am looking for.

And one of the things that is striking me now, is that the running didn’t really work, actually was the main cause of failure, or defeat.

Will I be successful?

Important quote related to success

“Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.” – Chanakya

What is success

While building this site the question arose what is success, so that will be an important item in the site.

Wikipedia says something like:

Success may refer to:

  • a level of social status;
  • achievement of a goal;
  • the opposite of failure.

But this is very broad and very vague, so we need to do something more. So slowly the idea is forming on how to structure the site related to success as success can really mean many things and can go from very small to very big. And maybe even most important, what is success for you, or maybe even more important, what is success for you right now?

So for now some types of success that came into our mind:

Please add to the list as Inspiration for Success wants to be the most inspiring and comprehensive site on success. Just comment on this page or send an e-mail to info@inspiration-for-success.com.

Some old personal stuff of the initiator of Inspiration for Success

And while working on this page now I get very confused, as this site started as something related to ‘success in life’, which to me is closely related to, yes, what?

I consider myself not successful as I am not successful in work, meaning something like not being appreciated with the work I did and do for others, work I did and do for money. And though I still believe it is pretty important in life to be able to support yourself financially it seems there is a lot more to success than I thought. For example, lately I lowered down the number of tasks I am putting to myself, and you know what I found? Virtually all the tasks I did put to myself in that way I did finish successfully. Pretty successful isn’t it? Also, since I started blogging as far as I remember I did not miss one day writing a blog item. Again, pretty successful.

So why do I consider myself not successful? So let’s work this out further on the page What is Success.

And find here a link to more about what I consider successful for myself for this site: sample success.

Happiness?

Or is success just about happiness? Are we just mixing up success and happiness as we believe success will give us happiness?

Read more on success and happiness.

Other readings

The page 10 things successful people never do again caught my attention and I am happy to share it here.

2 thoughts on “Success

  1. Blake Skaja

    Dear all authors of “Inspiration for Success” Blog,

    My name is Blake Skaja, a freshmen in the honors program at Iowa State University. I am also a member of The Green Room, a constituency of Iowa State University students dedicated to sharing our scholarship with the public. I have researched extensively about the concept of success and it is my hope that I can contribute to the conversation.

    To this end, I am offering an argument that combines text, image and video to make what I feel to be a compelling case for your cause. In this piece, I undergo a process of determining what the meaning of success is and what human traits are most important to obtaining success. I come to find that perseverance, or grit, is the trait that plays the most important role in being successful. My work can be found at the following link: http://dev.isucomm.iastate.edu/thegreenroom/bskaja/.

    It is my hope that you will read this work and find it useful. Also, I would like to solicit feedback on the ideas contained therein. If you have any suggestions on how I may refine my argument, then please let me know so that it can be used to influence the national dialogue in your favor.

    Thank you very for taking the time and I hope to hear from you,

    Blake Skaja
    bskaja@iastate.edu

    Reply
  2. Guus Post author

    Hi Blake,

    Thanks for your comment. At first sight I liked your success image on your homepage and it seems you did quite some study on success. We will check what you wrote in your site extensively as it seems well researched and will probably be some good input on our site. Did you also consider contributing to our site, our project?

    Guus

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Inspiring HTML allowed. Comments are being moderated.