Nothing Like Success!!!
All of us crave for
success. Through my eyes, I can see only two kinds of people who don’t have an
urge to succeed. One group who have renounced all the worldly pleasures. The
other, those who haven’t got a taste of it yet; for success is like that
elusive elixir of which once known the taste of, cannot be given up with ease.
I
was watching a movie and a pattern struck me. Most of the popular films celebrate
people who are not successful. People who are successful are mostly portrayed as
either nerds or evil or as narcissists.
Success doesn’t come by
easily. It doesn’t call on everyone too. It not only requires one’s dedicated
efforts but the nature should conspire for one tooJ. I think we are always
biased towards these who have not seen success. And the reason, the plain fact
that it is much easier to relate to them. Since the successful kind is such an
exclusive lot, people react to them in various ways.
To
begin with, most of us try to avoid them. We refrain from acknowledging the
fact that a person is successful. We play it down. We refuse to give them
credit. One reason might be the fact that coming in to contact with them and acknowledging
their success remind us of our own lack of it which many of us aren’t
comfortable with.
Another
approach is to compare it with other areas of their life. That person is
successful, but look at his/her family! He/ She couldn’t sustain the marriage
and it goes on and on. We look at the pricky leaves and the thorns of the plant
and fail to see the rose in full bloom amidst it.
We find comfort in the crowd. We join hands with the larger lot. I haven’t find
success and neither have you. Let us be happy and celebrate the mediocrity. Since
the unsuccessful lot is the larger one, this has a lot of acceptance in our society.
Also,
we conclusively decide that the person must have done something out of the way
to become successful. We forget that there are many people who have found success without
walking down the wrong path even once.
Then
there is this rhetoric of success making people self-obsessed. I feel that is
just a stereotype. If success makes one a narcissist, so does failure. The only
difference is the former stems out of contentment and the latter from
frustration.
What
we conveniently overlook is the toil the person has put in to achieve that stature.
The only thing that should concern us is the lessons to be learned from that
toil. It is the milestones that one passed that we should look at for only that
will guide us when we walk down that road on our own.
Arun Babu.
At times the reason why successful people are not duly acknowledged is probably because, success is a very relative concept. What I think of as success need not be success in the eyes of the society, friends and family.
ReplyDeleteWhen we congratulate someone on their success, saying "you have been gifted with the talent", are we trying to overlook the effort the person had put in to reach there ?
even though success might mean different things for different people, what stops them from appreciating others?
Deleteand about talent, I disagree..when someone says you are gifted...it just means you are lucky and you don't have to try very hard :)..and if at all you do, there is no limit for your success :)