Question: What if what I choose in life doesn’t make me financially wealthy; will I not be successful? What are the percentages of people who actually graduate who go on to be successful?
Answer this question: How do you define success?
Is it money? Fame? Glory? Others worshipping the ground you walk on?
None of these actually gets to the point of what success is. Sure, perhaps what you’re really asking is, “Will I have enough money to put food on my table?” Fair enough and hard to know without knowing precisely what you want to do.
True success however is a deep issue that deals with many things, but money and fame are never part of that equation. Success is you knowing that you invested in others. Success is hearing “I love you” from a child. Success is knowing that each second of the day was lived with passion and purpose.
Speaker and author John Maxwell said this, “Many people have what I call “destination disease.” They believe that if they can arrive somewhere—attain a position, accomplish a goal, or have a relationship with the right person—they will be successful. . .over time I realized that definition fell short of the mark.”
I call that same idea the “Next Big Thing” syndrome. We look ahead to the “Next Big Thing.” We focus on it; we dream about it. Then it arrives, but we don’t enjoy it. We’re already looking at the “Next Big Thing.”
Live in the now. It’s all we really have. As you do that, share your life with others as you live boldly. That’s the only success you need to worry about.
Sports Illustrated recently touched on this topic in an article from their September 24, 2007 issue. The article was about the death of baseball coach Mike Coolbaugh. He was hit by a random foul ball and then subsequently passed away. His death was the first in Major League Baseball since 1920. He left his pregnant wife and two children searching for answers and wondering how to move forward. The randomness of the event had her and other friends confident that a larger plan was in the works. By all accounts Coolbaugh was a wonderful man who greatly impacted many.
The writer of the article concluded with this powerful thought, going to the heart of what real success is. He wrote, “Who can say why [Coolbaugh died]? It will have to be enough to know that in the most obscure corners, compassion lives and success has nothing to with fame or money or even greatness. It will have to be enough to understand that such a notion is easy to forget, until a good man’s dying forces the world to pay attention at last.”
If you live each day well, seek to put good into the world around you, especially into the lives of others. That is success. Coolbaugh was not a perfect man (only one person in history has been), but he was someone who touched the lives of others. The history books are full of stories of people who made lots of money and yet were neither successful nor happy. Build your life on a spiritual foundation, working with a true definition of success, investing in others, and you will be happy.
“Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.” Albert Einstein