Eassy - How does one's perception of success influence his decisions?

Being successful is many people's ultimate dream. However it is almost impossible to thoroughly define success, as each and every one of us are individually special with individual goals. It is very hard to give a definition of success as everyone has got their own definition of success and it is a subject that is too generalized.

A person’s own definition of success depends on several factors, such as his characters, his perception and aptitude etc. Naturally we would all be asked what we wish to be in the future when we were children. From there interest begin to build up and we would set a goal, hoping someday we will excel in that venture and eventually gain certain rank or position in it. Whether we continue to pursue on that venture or not would depend on how motivated we are in getting to our goals. People who have very strong will power and competitive would naturally have lesser problems in achieving their goals and be successful in their own ways.

Being successful doesn’t always mean achieving high status or being a rich person. There are people who see success as finding contentment in life. Materialistic gains may not be the direct goals. What they aim for is being truly happy and enjoying whatever they have achieved so far in life. It could be something spiritual, emotional, or finding social well being within them. For example, some people think success is finding a stable job and having started their own family. While for travelers they might think success is being able to travel around the world to experience different cultures and freedom.

Sometimes a person’s definition of success could be imposed upon them by someone else such as a parent. There are parents who due to reasons unable to fulfill their own wishes, and hope their children would achieve their goals for them. Some parents are so strict to the point that they pose expectations onto their child, such as a parent who aim for his child to be an engineer would not deem the child as being successful in any other field, unless it is engineering. There are also people who wish to carry on a family business, to them being successful is continuing what the previous generation has started, and continuing it forever. These people deem success as upholding a family honor or continuing a tradition.

In general, every one of us would definitely have goals that we pose onto ourselves. It could be a form of self-challenge or sometimes even something we do to prove ourselves to others. However it is important for us to remember that success should not be something being expected out of us, but rather something we aim to achieve in our own standards, for ourselves.