In this modern era, it is not uncommon for adults who supposedly ‘lived through it all’ to tell the younger generation that they should quit their dreams early, regarding them as ‘wishful thinking’ and ‘hopeless fantasies’.
Let's imagine this: two separate children, Ali and Abu.
Ali has always gotten support and help from his peers in the fields that he’s interested in.
Abu has always been forced to play it ‘safe’ and lie low, sometimes even being told not to appear too proud of his achievements.
Ali then becomes a person who actively participates in any event regardless of his capability, often taking the last few places, he also participates in community activities such as beach cleaning, constantly meeting new people, and gaining new perspectives.
On the contrary, Abu becomes a person who only participates in the events he’s confident in, which are only some mathematics competitions; he dares not participate in anything else, afraid it might damage the image he has built so he stays home most of the time, revising homework.
Guess who will succeed in life?
Well the truth is, it is actually dependent on how we measure ‘success’. If we take making loads of money as the main metric of success, then either one of them could make it big, as it can’t be predicted from these simple things.
BUT-
If we take ‘experiences’, ‘learning’, and ‘personal growth’ as the main metric, then it becomes very clear that
Ali is the one truly succeeding.
This is actually quite synchronous with real life as well. In life, even though money is a main aspect in our lives, it doesn’t mean that experiences, niches, and doing things that you otherwise wouldn’t do are not important. In fact, those moments are what make life feel alive.
Take this, a rich man who has everything to own in the entire world but knowing zero skills outside of his source of income would actually have lived a pretty shallow life.
In my opinion,
Success in life is not about how much money, or how popular or how trendy we are.
Success in life is about the days where we stay strong and continue to push forward.
Success in life is the people we surround ourselves with everyday.
Success in life is trying new things whenever we can, letting us experience new joy.
So don’t be afraid to inspire others, try new things, and explore your own path to discover how you fit in this world.
There is no rule book to living a successful life; it is shaped by how YOU choose to go through life, not how other people tell you to.
So go on, start that business plan you’ve been thinking of, call that family member that you miss to tell them about your day, or simply do one thing today that your past self was too afraid to try.
Remember, the clay of life is in your own hands,
so don’t just hold it… shape something worth remembering.
Jaden W (wmjaden3@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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