Brain Food #577
Letting success happen
Thoughts of the day
Good morning, and happy Friday. A short thought for today, as we wrap up another week.
Success is not how much money one makes, or how much recognition one receives; these are the byproduct of other qualities and behaviours. Such ‘moments of success’ can be a fluke, the good fortune of someone being in the right place at the right time. A president, for example, is not successful because he (or she, one day) becomes president, but because of the work they have accomplished with the responsibilities they have been given.
Success is staying true to oneself in the long run, despite the temptations and pitfalls life might throw in one’s way.
Sustaining a good life where people value who you are and consider themselves lucky to have you in their lives (and do tell this to those that matter to you, they often forget), where you wake up every day with something you look forward to doing, where you have something to dream for, where you manage to overcome another unnecessary problem without a breakdown - that is the type of success that you cannot put a price on, and that the richest men in the world cannot afford.
Perhaps no one said it better, from the depths of human misery, than Viktor E. Frankl, who found meaning and the strength to carry on living in the direst of circumstances, as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp:
“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
Have a great weekend.
Thank you for reading today’s Brain Food. If you were forwarded this email and you'd like to read more, you can sign up and receive it in your inbox Monday to Friday.
And if you love Brain Food and want the world to know about it, feel free to share it with them by using the button below or forwarding them this email.
If you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas you'd like to share, just hit reply.
Read longer Brain Food musings on Medium.