What is success to us as humans? When I was a kid I thought success was being able to flick a football on your foot without it falling down. Then as I grew up it seemed that success was career-driven, like starting a company or being a writer or an artist or even a professional footballer. As I “matured” into the world and graduated university it started to all get muddy and green, it was all about status and money.

It felt that the only way to measure success is by having a prestigious high-paying job, a fancy car, and a house.

As I progressed in my career and life, traveled and lived in many countries, tried different careers and companies it was clear that something was wrong. There was no satisfaction in most of that.

Just for fun (said no one ever) let’s go to the Latin origin “result, outcome,” from Latin successus “an advance, a coming up; a good result, happy outcome,” So there must be something there that signifies happiness or an advance.

That part probably gets us confused (dictionaries are dangerous, they should be banned– lol). Since the most obvious advancement in our lives are our careers. As these are the most visible part, we are automatically inclined to add glamour to them and inflate their appearance. We keep doing that until it changes who we are fundamentally. For me it was career, for you it could be anything else that society use to define you.

If I were to take something from the dictionary and the origin of “success” I would focus on “happy outcome” as it creates a compass towards happiness which is another completely confusing word.

Let me end your misery here and say this. Stop defining your success based on what others see, want, or don’t want to see. start by defining your own success. It could be the biggest company in the world, it could be the best novel ever written, it could be serving coffee in a coffee shop, it could be living with your parents forever, it could be reading an awkward book, or window shopping in a mall. Just ignore what the world says and stop caring about that. Build your ambitions based on your happiness, not theirs.

And please, have a cup of coffee, decaf, it’s late down here.