Ever thought of the true meaning of success? Our modern, high-tech Western culture tells us that success equals:
- having as much stuff as you want,
- living in a spacious home that someone else cleans,
- earning/saving gobs of money,
- finding an attractive spouse, and
- being able to give your kids – if you choose to have any – whatever they want.
And because we are brainwashed from an early age that the above should be valued above all else, we focus on earning and spending money, and if we can’t get as much as we want, we hate the people who can.
Not a healthy way to live. After reading John Robbins’ masterpiece Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples
One of the most telling differences between their culture and ours is their value on generosity. In their culture, the most hospitable and most giving person is the most respected. As a matter of fact, if you are a guest in a poor person’s home, they will give you the last of their food and send you home with whatever gift they have on hand.
To the Abkhasians, success means having a large enough heart to be able to give, sometimes until it hurts.
I challenge you today to begin to change your success paradigm. Consider questions like these:
- What is true success to you, being able to buy your kids everything they ask for, or developing a deep bond with them by being there when they need you?
- Which is more successful, the business executive who works for someone else in a job he doesn’t like until he’s sixty so he can have a good pension, or the artist who lives in a small house in a small town creating and selling sculptures and paintings?
- Is true success having a million dollars in the bank that is gone within a few years because of lavish spending; or having a few thousand that is kept at a consistent level, pays all the bills with plenty left over for fun and travel, and earned by working only four hours a day?
- What is true success, having a kid who goes to an Ivy League college because you can afford it, or having a kid that learns entrepreneurship at the age of fifteen and has a successful small business at the age of twenty-two?
What is the true meaning of success? To each his or her own, but may your definition of success be one that makes your and your family’s happiness and fulfillment top priority. If you would like more guidance on this path to a fulfilling life, I highly recommend Brian Klemmer’s Personal Mastery Course.
