Our happiness is our success.
Monique McIntyre, Founder of the (r)evolution of bliss
Success. Happiness.
Two things we get crazy about.
Money.
Something we get really crazy about.
We are driven by our ideas about success, happiness and money. Driven to succeed. Driven to have money. Driven to be happy. Often, at all costs.
We have conflicting definitions of success. We know, in our hearts, that success is not what we have, but who we are, and yet we are constantly defining ourselves and our success by what we have in material possessions, or a career, or a job, or in popularity on our social media accounts, or in trinkets, or in educational degrees, or in IQ points, or in friends, or even in the number of contacts we have in our smartphones. No matter what our hearts say, we more often than not find ourselves “rolling with” what society deems as success.
Just think about it…
Think of who in your personal circle is the person you consider to be most successful. Who are they? Actually say their name out loud.
This person should be the person you immediately think of as successful, the one your brain makes the most immediate connection to; not someone you have to work at equating them with success.
Now, think about how successful this person is. Think about all of the things you can see make up their success. What are those? If you really want to see your relationship to success clearly, write these things down.
Consider that many of the things they have are many of the reasons you relate to them as successful. Just consider it fully. It doesn’t have to be true. I’m not convincing you of anything here. Just inviting you to participate.
Yes, there absolutely may be attributes to this person’s character that appeal to you as factors for their success. However, I challenge you to look for someone in your personal circle that has equal to those attributes but not the same outer trappings and see if you believe them to be as successful, or even inhabiting the same realm. What I’m saying is that if the person were homeless, but a really incredible and self-aware person, would you still qualify them as successful?
(Some of you just said inside your heads, Well, if they were homeless, then they wouldn’t be really self-aware. I invite you to look deeper at that equation / connection in your thinking.)
If we are to find true happiness within ourselves, peace in our desire to be fully ourselves, then we can truly redefine success for ourselves. If we cease being driven by our ideas of success, then our success can be an emanation of our contentment with us as we are; and with life as it is. There is ease in that understanding, and there can be a new opening for a new way of life, and a new definition of success for all of us. Acceptance is key.
Acceptance, however, does not preclude innovation. Acceptance does not preclude wanting more. And it definitely does not preclude improvement. Acceptance is wholly inclusive, not exclusive. So this is not about rebuking money or anything it can buy, or a lifestyle that embraces this. This is not about poverty as nobility. This is not about rebuffing those that are driven by success either, or the popular definition of The American Dream. I will say it again… Acceptance is key.
When we’re no longer driven by our “should’s” and “must do’s,” something else in life becomes possible. When we’re no longer driven by our visions of what we think life is supposed to look like, then we can be happy with just being – really being, with no help from anything outside of us. There is ease in being. There is abundance in ease. There is a new definition of success that can be discerned from both.
What would it be to be truly content, feeling truly successful for just being you? There would be nothing to do… and everything to express.
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