Success

Success is defined as accomplishment of an aim or purpose. So successful people are those who accomplish what they aim for. What happens after we succeed we don’t tell. What happened before succeeding we don’t say.

There are a humongous number of self help books about how to be successful, this won’t be about it. This is about what it means to succeed, how it feels. what we do with it and what happens when we lose it.

For most of my life, I considered myself successful. I focused on what I knew I was good at and put in all my effort. What I was good at was academics. I was first in class most of the time, and I ended up being valedictorian in high school.

However focusing on what I was good at, I forgot there was more in life like having friends, doing fun things, indulging in guilty pleasures and more. So the moment I ended being the best academically I had nothing else to act as a buffer. I fell and fell hard.

This ain’t a pity story though, it’s all part of reflections. I wonder what made me so good in the past years and where it went. Maybe I was so used to cruising smoothly that when I met some stone on the way; I was thrown off course.

I wonder whether I got so comfortable in my success I forgot what it is like not to. I forgot that life can change like the flip of a switch. Once you’re up and then you’re down.

I am not a failure despite what I might think. Success does not make us who we are. Sometimes we do feel entitled to it. Sometimes we feel it defines who we are. And sometimes it leaves us so that we can figure out who we really are deep inside.