What is Success?

Hindi words of the week
आत्मा Aatma (aah-th-muh) – soul/spirit
विश्वास Vishwas (vih-shh-wa-aus) – to believe

What does it mean to be successful? I think that if you ask most people this question they will answer with something along the lines of: “have a great job, make great money, retire early” etc. While these are all facets of success they are not the only ones. Let’s break away from the abstract concept of success for a minute and look at some physical objects. How does a tripod stand up? Well, the answer is in the name itself, it stands on the support of three legs. What is the least number of colors you need to make the whole rainbow, or how many primary colors are there? Three. I hope you’re beginning to get the hint but I’ll go ahead and throw in one more. How many musketeer’s were there and what did they do for each other? There were three and they were much like teammates, they supported one another.

Let’s bring it back now, I think success is highly subjective, the idea, practice, and manifestation of it varies so much from person to person that it becomes difficult to quantify. All of you Raptors must have already thought about your future career at this point in your life and if not, you probably are now. My belief is that success is the culmination of or rather supported by three things: mental health, physical health, and spiritual health.

Last week I talked about physical health and previously I have talked about mental health as well. However, I think it is important to also believe in some thing outside of yourself as well. Unfortunately as human beings we are the only creatures on earth, that we know of, who have existential thoughts. The “why” of things around us is something that as a species we cannot fathom and yet constantly strive to. Having a healthy spiritual aspect of your life relieves some of that tension. All faiths and religions are valid, just like success, you have to find out what spiritual connection is for you. Keep a strong foundation, have faith, be healthy, stay positive and no matter how you define success you can reach it.

If philosophy is something you’re interested in you can check out the courses offered by our college here, and if you’re looking for counseling you can find out more here. Stay healthy raptors, until next week!