There is a big difference between growth, progress and success. If you increase the turnover of your company, it is called growth not success. Increasing your materialistic possession is your growth. That growth, if it is aided by ethics and discipline, honesty and norms it is called progress. So, growth plus ethics is progress and that progress plus humanity, morality and spirituality is called success. Many consider themselves as successful and happy lot just by achieving some materialistic gain but that is not true success or happiness in the correct sense of the term until and unless it is sandwiched between humanity and morality.
To achieve real success and happiness after growth and progress is not that easy as is usually considered. In our life happiness is more important than smile, because smile comes from lips but happiness comes from the heart and that is not always dependent on achievement of success, as there are many successful lots in society who are not really happy as are the many lots of have-nots but who are still much happier with what they have got.
Happiness has nothing to do with achievement of success, as failures are taken as lessons of life by those happy lots who move on even after meeting failures. Contentment is all that matters. If one is not content with what one has, then no amount of materialistic wealth can bring happiness to him or her. One should learn to be happy even when worst comes to one. Of course, there might be momentary suicidal thoughts but one should try to overcome such negative thoughts and move on.
As it is said, difficulties or rather difficult roles are played only by good actors or characters, so whatever the difficulties come in life, one should take it as a challenge and move on as life itself is a continuous learning process. The real happiness doesn’t lie in money or success or fame. Real happiness lies in gratitude, so one should be grateful and one should be alive.
Different people may have different ideas about success. Somebody thinks if they can eat twice a day that’s well-being or success. Somebody else that’s not a success. Some feel that just working or doing their job is success. At the same time, the ‘over justification effect’ which is a tendency to become less intrinsically motivated to partake in an activity that one used to otherwise enjoy, when offered an external incentive such as money or reward and which might be the reason behind why so often one complains about one’s job, no longer speaks of success.
Consider the saying, ‘money can’t buy you happiness or success’. The over justification effect captures this belief by suggesting that intrinsic motivation and enjoyment is diminished by money. Motivation, or the lack thereof, is one of the biggest barriers to success and efficiency. It is a huge factor in learning, which is something we do throughout all stages of our lives. As children, our curiosity is often enough to get us interested in learning. However, once we go to school, getting good grades becomes the motivator for learning and reduces how much we actually enjoy the process.
Similarly, we may take on a job because it interests us, but once a salary is a quantifier motivating us to perform our tasks, we no longer enjoy the work. While it is hard to get rid of all external reward, like good grades or a salary, the over-justification effect demonstrates that it is important to remember the intrinsic value of activities in order to retain motivation.
Being aware of the over justification effect can help us decide to keep few of our passions and habits as activities that we do just for fun instead of seeking out an external reward to complete them. Our ideas of success may be different but every human being consciously or unconsciously constantly is in search of attaining success. Success also comes with Patience and Silence which are two powerful energies available to us which we seldom realize.
Patience makes us mentally strong and silence makes us emotionally strong which are also a pre-requisite for attaining real success. It is said, being humble is more important than being wise. Because the Almighty does not want a proud mouth that speaks much, but a kind heart that listens better. Look at Him itself, people all around the world speak to him incessantly, but he listens to those carefully who aspire to be peaceful within.
How much one achieves in life is not as important as how much one enjoys each moment of one’s life and that is true success. Real success is when you look back at your life and the memories make you smile.
