Seduced and sold. Imagine if your definition of success wasn’t actually yours?
Have you ever considered that your definition of success is not yours? That you are defined by a cultural definition of what success looks and feels like?
Our current Western worldview sees success as this shiny place with status, lots of money, the perfect career, a big title, a big house, a shiny car, the perfect spouse, kids in the right school, the perfect body… empires built, kings and queens of the world.
It really is worth asking the question…and going deep…what makes you feel successful? What does success really look like for you? How will you know you are successful? And is this truly your experience of success, or is it the version you brought (or were sold, and constantly resold…day in and day out) on the way through life?
To untangle from the marketing assault we are constantly barraged with is no easy feat. To really start to think and feel for yourself.
What success looks and feels like also changes with our own development. Once we start to transcend the egoic stage of development where everything is about I, me, mine – our selfie narcissistic world view – the bright shiny toys that so attracted us lose their gloss.
It’s worth spending time with people who do not let society define them…people like AJ Leon (check out the interview with him on this page), and Chris Guillebeau. The misfit and the non conformist have laid a path for all who want to embrace a full and rich life (and hence their own version of success) on their terms. They shun the usual path of big, bigger, biggest. Instead they go for art, generosity and genuine human connection.
Define yourself. Take the time. Ask the hard questions. Go deep. Challenge all assumptions.
As Mary Oliver says…what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Juan Carlos Labarca via Compfight
