The definition of success

I guess you must have attended one of those fantastic "success" seminars, or you must have heard about one of those stories of "successful" persons, and hence for at least once, you felt very motivated and "wanted to achieve success in you life". So before you begin your journey, let me ask you a supposingly simple question: what is success? Got a fortune? Have great power? Have a superior status in society? Become famous? Achieve something extraordinary? Get an ideal lover? Have a happy family? Free from worry?

It is obvious now that each of us can define success in different terms depending on the needs, unless you want to get them all. Who do not want to have them all? But did anyone on earth ever have them all? My guess is no. In fact, no goal could be achieved without at the expense of other things. In order to gain something, you need to lose something. This is called sacrifice, or called the trade off of life. What a simple theory! If you do not believe this you may well end up in constant confusion because you hold on to too many things or needs that are contradicting among themselves. Since you can't get all great things in life, what things do you want the most? I guess this is the toughest question of life. What do you really want in your life, knowing that you can't be greedy and can only keep few important things that really matter to you?

I believe most of us will not have the same set of common answers, the common answers of extraordinary things: "financial freedom", "superficial status", "great fame" or "great power". To me, success is very subjective and personal. And hence of all quotes about success, I like this the most: Success is measured by how many struggles you have overcome and how far you have advanced in your life. I know it is very hard not to compare ourselves against others in terms of monies, power, status or other quantities (things that can be quantified) to see how "successful" we are, but the basis of comparison just doesn't exist. None of us start from the same starting point, face the same challenges, have the same struggles to overcome, and want the same things in life.

Not even the financial freedom, I shall say, should be the goal for everyone. No, I am not opposing the great motivation to achieve financial freedom in life, but I am getting more skeptical of the validity or righteousness of selling this idea. It is easier for the seller of financial freedom to achieve it than the mass audience. Can everyone achieve financial freedom? No, the world will stop functioning immediately if all of us become parasites. Can some of us achieve financial freedom? Yes, but how many percent of us? This percentage cannot be high, at least not more than fifty. In fact, the percentage is really small, and it's a tough road and often comes with ugly scenes. So why bother so much about financial freedom? Do you really need to achieve this first before you achieve other things? Do you want to sacrifice other things in life to get this?

I have been thinking very hard on this topic - success for the past few years, and only till now I have a clearer picture of things that I want to achieve in life. If there is any success I want to achieve, that success, is called BALANCE OF LIFE, the balance of aspects that I treasure the most: family, friendship, personal growth and contribution to the society (via career or other activities). This balance, of course need to be built on the foundation of stable incomes, but not financial freedom. You do not need financial freedom to achieve this balance.