How do you define success?
Maybe it is acing all your exams and walking out of college with a 4.o. Or perhaps it is earning a degree, securing a job and climbing to the top of the corporate ladder. Let’s be honest — it probably also involves having copious amounts of money.
Lately, as I have been considering my own definition of what it means to be successful, I find myself wondering why happiness is not at the top of my list.
For the past four years of my college career, I have been chasing perfection.
I often sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of appearing as someone who fits in society’s predetermined definition of success.
Why is it that we rarely put happiness before success? Perhaps it is because happiness cannot be ranked or easily displayed. Or maybe it is because “happy” does not pay the bills.
I know I am extremely privileged to even be able to consider what would make me happy in life. For many people whose main priority is surviving each day, happiness is a faraway dream.
I do not take this gift lightly, and the next time you think about your own future, I challenge you to consider the six words I have been mulling over the past two weeks — “What will truly make me happy?”
After all, I cannot imagine a worse fate than wasting the gift I have been given.
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