November 25, 2024: Success vs Happiness
"Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life."
-John Wooden
What do you truly want to get out of life? What achievement would it take for you to be able to say to yourself "I had a good run?" Is it fame or fortune? A fancy house on the hill? A fancy car? What achievement would make you feel that you accomplished something important with your life? Many, if not most of us have probably not ever pondered that question. The Good Book reminds us that "In all your getting, get wisdom."
”Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.”
– P. Kinsella
The stories are LEGION about individuals who have reached the pinnacle of what we generally deem as success by business achievements, financial success, fame, and fortune. Stories also abound about those individuals who made it to the top only to find that their lives felt miserable and unfulfilled. What then is it that actually gives life its meaning? I hope we can generally agree that the acquisition of material things no matter how grandiose does not bring happiness or a sense of fulfillment to anyone. Actually, interpersonal relationships with our children, our spouses, and our mutually respectful and caring relationships with our friends and family that, regardless of socioeconomic factors. bring a sense of fulfillment and connectedness with our personal world. Absent that sense of connection and mutual caring, our lives have little genuine meaning to us. Three significant takeaways from this brief meditation might be:
1. Continue nurturing your caring relationships throughout your life. Truly meaningful ties with others require some thread of at least intermittent continuity to survive.
2. Disabuse yourself of the notion that you can put your relationships on hold while you climb to success and then pick them up once you reach the top. Interpersonal relationships are like flowers, they require regular watering.
3. The building blocks of meaningful, happy lives are made, not by the acquisition of things, but by the things we do with and for others.
Now you know.
© 2024 Detroit Flanagan
All rights reserved
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