Millions of people, mostly young ones, are struggling day and night to achieve “success” in their lives. Unfortunately, given hundred people questioned about what they call success, the chance to have less than 80 different answers is very little. In such situation, there are many possibilities that the majority of those answers are somehow missing the target. What can we really call “success”? And what should be the road map to success? These are some of the important questions that we will discuss in the following paragraphs.
What is success?
One day, at the end of my lesson at one of the university institutions in Bujumbura where I lecture, one of my students followed me to my office and asked: “Sir, looking at the current situation in the country where the unemployment rate keeps on increasing, the economic situation is more or less chaotic, do you think our generation can still hope for a successful life?” Hmmm, the question took me quite some minutes to think of what to answer. “How do you describe a successful person?” I asked the student. And from there we continued our beautiful conversation which led me to search more on this topic.
Nairobi-Kenya: One of the “Youth empowerment” clubs’ gathering
The above images mean a lot for me in the context of this article. As I was collecting ideas, my mind flashed back to Nairobi some years back to my youth empowerment clubs that I was coordinating, from which I drew many inspirational memories that I linked to this topic.
Most people see financial security as success. Yes, but partly, because I have known and heard about many wealthy people committing suicide or living a kind of hell in their everyday life; this cannot be called success, for sure. Yet, financial well being is a part of the elements that when missed, one has less chance to be happy. In fact, every grown up and responsible person has four responsibilities which are:
- Physical well being,
- Social responsibility,
- Economic responsibility,
- Mental well being.
All these responsibilities are very important and when well handled, constitute a good package for happiness. Certainly one needs to have a good balance to satisfy the four responsibilities. However, this cannot be the end in itself; the four responsibilities are just some of the means to happiness. Hence, inspired by famous John Lennon’s quote, I came to realize that success is HAPPINESS, the Ultimate goal for life.
“My mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up; I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” John Lennon
The road map to success
- A happy mind is an empowered mind
Knowing the fact that a human being is composed of two main components – mind and body – and that the mind controls the body, one needs to take a very good care of their mind for the sake of happiness. When the mind is happy and empowered by positive energy, all other actions of the body are also positive. The opposite applies as well; when the mind is negative, actions are negative. Hence, every human being is entitled to happiness.
What often deprives us from that happiness and peace is, in fact, the nature of the mind itself; it keeps on wandering and being anxious about many things at the same time, about the future, the past and many other external occurrences around us in which our mind hovers consistently. Many times they will not be pleasant to the mind, and in this case we won’t be joyful.
What can be the remedy to this fact?
Meditation is the best remedy, and it has been proved scientifically. Through meditation, we bring the mind within and by doing so we limit its distractions and thus we experience peace and joy. When you practice meditation and manage to bring your mind to a standstill point, you will not only feel peaceful and happy; it will become a stable and continuous feeling because the mind is at the centre of gravity. What we do during meditation, is to train the mind to stay focused and standstill at one point/one particular thought where it can enjoy the present moment. When the mind is happy and at peace, it becomes more creative because it is focused and has no more obstacles of negativity that prevent the mind from thinking clearly. Its positive energy is the power itself which brings it to the highest level of creativity. Hence, a happy and peaceful mind is an empowered mind.
- An empowered mind empowers
“Our doubts are traitors and make us loose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt.” William Shakespare
One of the most important characteristics of a happy and empowered mind is positivity. Definitely, a positive mind would be much more optimistic and by being optimistic a person with a positive mind is successful in his enterprises. The clarity and focus of his mind empowers the person with self esteem and self confidence so much that they become more and more successful in business, in school or in any of their other endeavours.
We understand consequently that real success does not follow the pursuit of wealth without happiness but rather a pursuit of success through happiness. Hence, actually the key to success is not from your high studies, your money or whatever external factor but it is in YOU.
Conclusion
Every human being would prefer to be successful in their life. The problem is that many set a wrong target. The real success is Happiness, because a happy mind is an empowered mind and when the mind is empowered, it empowers and leads to an authentically successful life.