Successful

I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the
contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
-Margaret Mead
I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give
this game of life everything he or she has got.
-Walter Cronkite


I've included two quotations today because of all that I've read about success, these are the two things that come up over and over again:  serving others and giving all of our effort.

How can we call ourselves successful if we completely ignore the needs of others?  Many of us are taught that life is a battle and that the successful people are those who come out on top, leaving the "losers" behind.  This definition of success, though, includes a complete disregard for our fellow human beings, and while we may end up with more money or a position of supposed power, the truth is that when we harm other people, we harm ourselves, too.  It's like making it through a dangerous jungle, but then having to live with a debilitating disease that we caught while we were in there.  Yes, we made it through, but our quality of life forever after is very low.  When we serve others while striving to become successful, we set ourselves up for a very gratifying life in which we can see the results of our efforts both in our own life and also in the lives of others.

Nothing worthwhile ever comes from a halfhearted effort.  If we're going to do something, be it work, a school assignment, a task for a friend, getting in shape, losing weight--whatever it may be, the effort will be more successful and more gratifying if we give it all that we've got as opposed to giving it just a bit of effort.  Successful people give their tasks all their effort, realizing that the outcome of their efforts depends fully upon what they put into it.  If you build a house and cut corners, the house will start having problems from the beginning.  If you try to raise a child with mostly neglect, guess what?  Try to fix a car or paint a room sometime while you're also on the phone, and when you're only going to give an hour to the job, no matter what.  If we want to be truly successful, then we'll give all that we can to our tasks for the time that we're working on them, and we'll find success in our efforts.

To these two things, I would also add that we need to define success for ourselves rather than buying into other people's definitions of success.  A person can be a great singer and not be a star, coming out with a new album every year and giving concerts constantly.  Listen to Harry Chapin's "Mr. Tanner" sometime for a good example of a man who lost his love for music because he didn't live up to someone else's definition of "success."  And when he lost his love for music, he also lost a lot of happiness in his life.

Do you want to be successful?  You can be, and it's not all that hard if you go about it in the right ways.  When you make sure that what you do is helping others (even indirectly), and when you give all that you have to what you're doing, you can definitely be successful--whether other people recognize it or not.  Remember, your definition of success is up to you, so make sure that it's realistic and attainable, and something that will give you personal gratification.