What is success?

BirdieChao
Sep 3, 2017
5 min read

This is Birdie's 24th personal article

When I just started this blog, I have the end goal in mind of making this blog into a place where we can go to and look for ways to be a successful person. But what exactly is successful?

A few months ago, I had a random chit chat with my classmate which is also one of my best friend in school. And at that time, I’m all over the place trying to build my network and portfolio outside of school but he’s just chilling and stuff.

So, I during the chit chat, I asked him what he wants in the future. But he said shocked me. This is what he says.

“A stable job with a family just like what he has now.”

So, I asked him why he doesn't want a successful life? He didn’t answer, But I think. That is the definition of success for him.

-The Bird that's using this article to clear up his own thoughts as well

Image from: https://voolas.com/powerful-cartoons-comment-ridiculous-aspects-life/

I found that a lot of my article openings are about the outcomes of social media and network. This revolutionary technology has changed almost every aspect of how we see things. Or should I say, it pretty much brainwash a lot of the things that we see.

One of the things that we are most likely brainwashed is the definition of success. Without any hesitation. When we say about success, what appears in our mind is the image of people partying, earning big cash and have big cars and houses. And most importantly, they seem effortless to get any of that.

This is because of the constant illustration of this kind of image for the successful people because they often only show the glamorous side instead of showing the blood sweat and tears of their journey.

So many of us, including myself last time, strongly believed that that’s how the successful people live. Under the spotlight, living a life that others can only be envious about.

However, this is just the image of success set by the social media and the public. Not the image or should I say, the definition of success in our own terms. Because every person’s perspective of success is different. Like my friend’s definition of success isn’t the same as my definition of success.

Before I wrote this blog, I have asked myself a lot of times on what is a success to me. Because for me to be successful, I need to first know what is success first. This is just like setting goals. If we don’t know where we are heading, we will never know if we are heading to wards it.

I remember the first time that I asked myself about my definition of success is during a secondary school camp when they ask what is the definition of success to you. At that time, there’s only one thing that popped up. Rich.

However, as the time and the number of times I asked myself increases, I have a clearer and clearer idea of what’s the definition of success is to me. And now, the definition of success to me is to be able to make choices.

I’m not talking about daily small unimpactful choices, I’m talking about the choices that will be much more impactful. For example things like buying houses, I do not need the biggest house or the best location for my house. But I want to have the capability and the ability to choose the house of my ideal type. I do not want to have myself restricted to only HDBs. That’s the definition of success to me.

Image from: https://www.acceluspartners.com/conundrum-choice/

And I personally think that the ability to make the choices is success to everybody. The ability to choose what you want to do the most anywhere any time is the definition of success. We are blinded by the social media on their image of success because that’s the end product of being a successful person.

Able to buy the dream car of yours, able to buy the dream house of yours and decorate it as how you exactly wanted it to be. Able to travel around the world and do anything you love to do. It’s all the choices are we deep down want to choose but we can’t choose due to certain limitations.

Image from: http://clickwinningcontent.com.au/google-adwords-campaign-key-factors/

Okay, above is all about the definition of success, it’s not one set of image that one set but it’s highly adaptable to different individuals perspective of success.

However, no matter what kind of definition of success you have, it will never leave this 3 most important factor to be successful. Which in other words, it means that you need to have these 3 factors in order to be successful.

1. Wealth. It’s very vain I know, but we all have to admit money is a key factor when we talk about success. It doesn’t have to be a lot of money, but it needs to at least more than enough to support the choices that you want to make.

This factor is actually very self-explanatory because that’s the single most important image illustrated by the social media in order to show success.

2. Knowledge This one is a little more tricky, but knowledge is another key factor that plays a huge role in being successful. Only when we are equipped with sufficient knowledge then we have the ability to make the right choices. Because only then, we won’t be affected by the short term benefits of some choices that might inflict a huge pain to us in the future. Only then, we will know the choices good enough so we have the courage to choose the choice we truly want.

Only with sufficient knowledge, we can enjoy the unlimited amount of choices that wealth brought to us.

3. Health This one is also self-explanatory, without good health, no matter how rich or how much you have accumulated throughout your life, you have no way to enjoy it other than resting on the bed in a hospital.

You may argue with Stephen Hawkins, who is paralyzed from top to bottom with the only moving muscle being his cheek muscle. So he writes his theories by twitching his cheek muscles. He appears to be very successful in our eyes because, despite his condition, he still made huge contributions to the human society.

But, do you think he would rather stay in that state or have a better health condition?

So, if you really ask what is success? I would say, success is being good at all 3 key factors. And here at Birdie's Journey. I hope to share with you the knowledges that I learnt that could help us to be one step closer to our own definition of success.

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It's your choice

To live in your dreams or to be living your dreams

-Birdie Chao