“Success,” according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is “the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame.” This description is not far off from society’s overall accepted definition today, where unfortunately, unless you are obtaining and accumulating a fair amount of material wealth and possessions, you are considered unsuccessful in society’s eyes.
Where does this definition come from? Is it corporate driven? After all, it’s what we see on our television screen all day long. Clever marketing defines success, influencing our thoughts, wants, needs, and actions, encouraging mass consumption and the accumulation of material possessions and wealth.
Does it really matter what we do for a living? What type of ‘things’ we have or where we live? Or is a homeless person with no material possessions with a giant, loving, caring heart more ‘successful’ than someone who has all of that other stuff? What do you see as successful?
Or is success determined by the individual rather than the collective? Could it be, perhaps, that those who give their power over to this definition of success are the only ones affected by it? What about those who neither care nor pay attention to this version of success? What about those who have freed themselves from the mental prisons of societal definitions?
