Response

 

 

The Road to True Success

 

 How does it feel to hoist that trophy in the air? Or to win that race for the championship? Feels pretty good doesn’t it…that’s what our world today defines as success. The success of people is defined by the world as being at the top, getting that championship, being the best of the best. But is that really what success is or is there more to it? Could there be more to success than merely being on top? Over the years I have learned that there is two types of success. There is the success that is the stereotypical form of success of being at the top and being better than the rest, then there is what I consider to be True Success and that is personal success. The stereotypical success always implies that there is a winner and a loser. When dealing with personal success there is no failure you just keep trying until you succeed. In the movie “The Love Guru” the character played by actor mike Myers points out “there is no such thing as failure…only early attempts at success” and what I took from that is that the only reason we fail is because we believe we have failed. We never truly fail unless we ourselves believe it but if we believe that even though we have not yet achieved success it is still possible.

 

 

The typical stereotype of success is you always have to be the best. You must win that football game, you must win that championship, get that big promotion from your boss. But why? Is it because the world puts tons of pressure on us to be the best? Everywhere you look you will see propaganda urging us all to be the best of the best but not our best just better than others. We see it in TV commercials, music and movies. Now is that a bad thing or is it a good thing? Really you can look at it from both points of view. You could say it’s good because it’s pushing you to be the best in the world at whatever you’re doing. But what about the bad side? Reason one is some people take that method of thinking above and beyond and try to overdo success and ultimately in their mind and by the standards of the typical success become a loser. But let’s also say that they try to get to that stage of success and achieve that certain championship or win that game. 9 times out of 10 the people who get to that stage of success can possibly regret it for two reasons. Number one they feel unhappy with themselves for trying so hard to get there that they perhaps lose sight of the rest of the things around them.  Secondly because as soon as they get their success they come to find out that this wasn’t exactly what they wanted after all. For example getting that big promotion maybe it took you places that maybe you didn’t want to go. In other words the people that get to fame and riches might realize it’s never what they truly wanted and it doesn’t make them as happy as they thought that it would.

 

So is that the only way to look at success? I say no because what people often forget about is the success of your own personal being. Personal success comes in many forms it can come from personal goals you set for yourself. It can be meeting a standard set for you maybe not getting to the top but beating your own records. It can even include getting a promotion. But how could that be any different from the stereotypical success that people strive towards? Well for one the simplest way to put is that between the two forms of success with personal you are striving to be the best that you can be you are not looking to be better than others. Secondly with the win loss success there is always a clear cut decision or outcome, with personal success the outcome can always get better and chance. In other words if you “fail” at first there are still always chances to get better and succeed.  The best examples of personal success can even include sports. Take a track athlete for example every day they step out on the track they may be there to beat the guy/girl to their left and to their right but they are also there to beat themselves to beat their best time every chance they can get especially if it gets them to the championship and then it becomes the championship form of success even still though in a championship track race there is always a hint of personal success because even then you can do your best to beat yourself. Let’s also say you make it to that state track meet and going into that state track meet you were projected to finish 4^th or 5^th. This is also leads to personal success because let’s say you don’t win but let’s say you make it to 3^rd or 2^nd that’s personal success because even though you did not win you bested what you were projected or told you would do…you beat yourself. Another sport you can compare this to since most success is based on sports and athletics,football can even be related to personal success because let’s say you had a 10-5 record last year and then this year you get a 14-1 record. You beat your personal best you beat yourself because you got a better record than you did last year.

 

 

So in conclusion while success is mainly defined as win or lose there is more to success than just that you can also have success of your own personal life. From being in a state track meet and coming in 2^nd when you were picked to finish 3^rd to beating your previous record in football from last year all the way to getting that big promotion.