Everyone has a different definition for these to states of being. But I see them as one and the same. Not that success is happiness but that happiness is success. You can get caught in the upward spiral of constantly achieving new levels of education, positions of employment, and/or the position in society itself. Ah, the push, the grind, the pressure to be recognized as successful. For then, ‘they’ will love me. Society, now that’s a big one. People are so concerned what other people think of them. Maybe my mother actually helped me. She never really liked me and told me that she wished that I was never born. That was her favor to me. I knew I could not please her. I mean, I tried for a long time while I was growing up, but there was this point, a point of no return, that I knew that to continue trying would be fruitless and that I needed to please myself. Well, maybe I wasn’t so insightful I didn’t need anyone. Pleasing someone has its own happy rewards also. Finding the love of my life probably helped also. But truly the real level of success is when you recognize satisfaction of where and who you are.
If success is happiness, I could not have done what I’ve done twice in my life: leave a respected level in society for a happier avenue for myself. The last time has landed me here, very early retirement for myself, to be beside the man I love and about to bicycle (waltz) across Texas. I believe that when one achieves happiness, then they are successful. Look into your inner desires and see what it is you want, look at your choices. It is within you, not outside of you. Is that not what insight or even Nirvana, for that matter?
