What is success?
What is success?
“Success is not just about money. Success is the accomplishment of something that is important to us.”
Step Jones tells in his book ordinary to extraordinary,
“……….Success is the self-satisfaction of doing something that you want to accomplish…..” “find something you love to do and find a way to make a living at it”………….
……….“ People with positive attitudes will take more risk, because they look at the prospective outcome as potentially beneficial. Those with negative attitudes will be leery of taking chances due to fear of failure.”…….
15 Characteristics in a Successful Person;
Positive self-image, Positive mental attitude, Imagination, Having a plan, Knowledge, Competence, Commitment, Determination, Enthusiasm, Self-discipline, Persuasiveness, pleasing personality, ability to budget time and money, Stable physical and mental health and Strong love and energy for life plan.
“……….People are more afraid of success. Because success means you have to continue to perform. Success means you might have more liabilities, and responsibilities. That people’s expectations of your abilities will rise.”………..
Hall & Dawn tell in their book Psychological success,
“………… Under certain conditions, task success can lead to psychological failure…………..
1. When behaviors associated with career success lead to personal failure.
2. When assignment success does not result in identity change.
3. When a changed identity is not seen by significant others.
4. When objective success in one phase of the career propels the person into a new career learning cycle. ”
“………. one of the deepest forms of satisfaction or psychological success can occur when the person experiences work as more than a job or career—when it is a calling……………”
……………………..“It is the desire for success that has to be understood, and not why there are the rich and the poor, or why some have talent and others have none. What has to be changed is our own desire to climb, our desire to be great, to be a success. We all aspire to succeed, do we not? There lies the fault, and not in karma or any other explanation. The actual fact is that we all want to be at the top - perhaps not right at the top, but at least as high up the ladder as we can climb. As long as there is this dive to be great, to be somebody in the world, we are going to have the rich and the poor, the exploiter and those who are exploited”…………………………
………….. a mind which is striving after success, a result, groping after something which it cannot have, is essentially narrow, conditioned, limited, made petty by that very effort; and however much it may attempt to be steady by controlling itself, can such a mind ever bring about that essential energy which comes with deep, fundamental steadiness, or will it only build another series of limitations, further pettiness? ………………..
………………. fear of not achieving; fear of being a failure, especially in this country where success is worshipped. Don't you all want success? Of course we all do. And most of us, unfortunately or fortunately, are not great successes - except perhaps a few politicians, and the gurus which accumulate money with their nonsense, and the evangelist and so on, so on, so on. …………..
Nature’s intelligence functions with effortless ease . . .
with carefreeness, harmony, and love.
And when we harness the forces of harmony, joy, and love,
we create success and good fortune with effortless ease.
An integral being knows without going, sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing.
-- - Lao TZU
The Two Words (The unsuccessful monk) - A Zen Story
There once was a monastery that was very strict. Following a vow of silence, no one was allowed to speak at all. But there was one exception to this rule. Every ten years, the monks were permitted to speak just two words.
After spending his first ten years at the monastery, one monk went to the head monk. “It has been ten years,” said the head monk. “What are the two words you would like to speak?”
“Bed… hard…” said the monk.
“I see,” replied the head monk.
Ten years later, the monk returned to the head monk’s office. “It has been ten more years,” said the head monk. “What are the two words you would like to speak?”
“Food… stinks…” said the monk.
“I see,” replied the head monk.
Yet another ten years passed and the monk once again met with the head monk who asked, “What are your two words now, after these ten years?”
“I… quit!” said the monk.
“Well, I can see why,” replied the head monk. “All you ever do is complaining.”
The Successful King (Sufi story) - Osho
It happened that a witch came to a capital town. She threw something into the well, chanted a mantra, and said, "Whosoever will drink the water from this well will go mad." The capital had only two wells: one for the ordinary humanity, another was in the palace for the king and the prime minister.
Of course, people had to drink, knowing well that they will go mad. But there was no other way -- that was the only well. They were not allowed to go to the palace to get water from there.
So the whole town by the evening, when the sun was setting, became mad. But nobody was aware, because when everybody goes mad, how can you be aware of it? As hippies say, everybody was doing his own thing. People were dancing naked, crying, screaming; women were running naked on the streets. People were doing all sorts of yogas... somebody standing on his head, somebody doing other asanas -- the whole town was in a nightmare. Much rejoicing was going on. People were celebrating and jumping and screaming -- the whole town was awake!
Only the king and the prime minister were sad, very sad: "What to do? The whole town has gone mad, and poor souls, they are not even aware of it because when everybody goes mad, how to judge?" In fact, the prime minister and the king became suspicious of their own sanity. Maybe the madness had happened to them, because the whole town seemed blissfully unaware. Thousands of people, and they had all gone mad, and nobody thought that anybody was mad.
In that town of course the king and the prime minister became suspicious of themselves: maybe the madness had happened to them! And by midnight there was great trouble, because the whole town gathered and the town also became aware that something had gone wrong with the king and the prime minister. A rumor spread that the king and prime minister had gone mad. And of course everybody agreed.
They surrounded the palace. The guards were mad, the police were mad, the army was mad, so there was no protection, and they started demanding, "Either you come back to your senses, otherwise we will dethrone you."
The king said, "What to do?"
The prime minister said, "You talk to them, and I will run and fetch some water from the well, because there is no other way now. In this mad capital, if we want to survive even for a single minute we have to be mad."
He fetched some water from the well of the town. They both drank, they both started dancing, they threw off their clothes -- and the whole town was happy that the king and the prime minister were back to their senses, they had regained their sanity.
1. http://www.lifemotivations.com/step/successPhilosophy.html
2. Psychological success: when the career is a calling by DOUGLAS T. HALL* AND DAWN E.
CHANDLER (Boston University School of Management, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)
3. Ordinary to Extraordinary by Step Jones with Victor Currie and Erica Watson-Currie, PhD.
4. Just Like That – Osho (Chapter 5: Mind Games )
5. http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/index.php