Eneh Akpan Writes: What Success Is

Monday, October 11, 2010

What Success Is

This article was formerly titled, Success is Liking Yourself. I kind of thought this title more self explanatory so I used it. It’s still the same story and hopefully the title might help you view it in a greater, broader light. (If you happen to be one of the ones who have read this before.)

How many times have you heard people measure wealth by the ability to come up with some stack? Okay, lose the flowery language. How many times has anybody around you or you at that, evaluated your worth by the size of your pocket? Does money really have a role to play in the process? Of course, you can succeed in making money but does that make you, the money maker a success story?

Life, we will find out is a blend of processes that makes a demand on our courage at every turn. Who we are is called upon to take on challenges or face consequences if we don’t measure up. We could achieve a college degree, afford a drop top or come up with enough dough to buy the town and the maturing of the inner mystery is not accomplished during the course of achieving and we turn out the worse for it, eventually.

‘Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it’ - Maya Angelou

We grow in degrees and through the different levels of progress; we come to agreement with the reality of who we really are. The things that make life worthwhile, the ingredients that bring quality to day-to-day living are the minuscule million, simple moments that present us with needful things which are vehicles of growth. All the same, the effects of the material without the development of the individual housed on our insides are for the most part, distractions which slowly but surely stifle the stages of inward progress.

It’s you, it is not the money. You, not the thousand and one material things you achieve. It is you, not your stories. Liking yourself, what you do, and the style you bring to it.

And until we accept this as reality and nothing less, our real selves, the children inside every one of us will remain naïve, timid and shamelessly ignorant of a more splendid alternative.

Akpan