As the adage goes, the accomplishment of goals in life is success. To achieve a goal is to attain self-actualization, therefore, it can be argued that what people consider to be a success lies in the perspective of realization and following one’ s calling. When it comes to ascertaining reasons for success, many argue that a successful person either gets lucky or makes it through many hours of persistent and hard work. In order to understand reasons for success one has to first evaluate the definition of it: what constitutes success or what qualities does a person obtain when reaching the peak of their success? It is a highly subjective task, therefore, it can be said that there is neither the “right” way to measure success, nor the indicators of it are always the same in all cases. All in all, a successful person is the one who is working hard in order to realize themselves in a certain field; it is not the “success” or money that drive them, but their need to do what they feel they have to do in order to be happy; and when it comes to grabbing a chance, they go for it without second guessing, if it helps them progress further.
Some people argue that only luck can make a person successful, that one has to wait for a chance to do something extraordinary in their life; for example, lottery winners are often said to be successful. It is a wrong statement, because more often than not, people attribute success to the material wealth and unknowingly omit everything else. It is hard to believe that a person has a lifelong calling for buying lottery tickets and is fulfilling their purpose by doing so. A calling is something that brings value in peoples’ life, money alone cannot achieve this. There are, of course, people like Frane Selak, who, according to him, escaped death seven times and then won $1m in a lottery (Branagh, 2011). He may very well be successful, but not because he has won a substantial amount of money, but because he decided to give away most of it to his friends and relatives. This act of charity, and not the amount of money he obtained, could have been Frane Selak fulfilling his purpose and becoming successful. Although this decision did not require any hard work, it certainly is something a person without a sincere will would not do.
Work and understanding of one’s purpose constitute the ground for achieving success. One has to be committed to his endeavors and invest a lot of time and, very often, money in them in order to become successful. Students, who burn the midnight oil while studying, and then get top positions and higher grades do so not because they are seeking the recognition and praise (although, it cannot be denied that there are people like this), but because they are sincerely interested in the subject and want to know more and get better in what they like. The grades are merely collateral. People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zukerberg all followed their passion in creating what they found interesting and useful. The underlying motive for all of them was hardly the desire to accumulate a fortune. One cannot start from scratch and build a long-lasting successful multi-million company if he is guided solely by the willingness to make money. A person has to be devoted to what they do, be ready to sacrifice and give a lot. When one is working towards something, they are often presented with various, often lucrative and promising, opportunities as they progress. To call these opportunities a product of blind luck is to diminish all the hard work and effort that has been put in in order to get to them. Only people who have not yet acknowledged their calling, or are reluctant to do so for the reasons beyond the scope of this text, would say so.
It is a widely accepted and popular belief that success equals money. As I have tried to illustrate, success is rather a state of mind than a measureable substance, therefore, giving all credit to the money is plain wrong and narrow. A person can succeed in anything: feeling content serving drinks at the bar is equal to running a multimillion corporation, if people have come to understanding that it is what makes them happy in life.
References
Branagh, N., 2011. hexjam. [Online] Available at: http://www.hexjam.com/uk/student/top-ten-luckiest-people-in-the-world[Accessed 6 April 2016].
