How Do We Know That We Are Successful in Life?

Exploring life’s mythical, ever-changing goal post.

The lucky few

In 1967 a young boy from India was interviewed on his aspiration in life. He said he just wanted to live a comfortable life with a simple government job. He desired to marry his boss’s daughter, drink cups of coffee while sitting in a comfortable air-conditioned room, attend boring meetings, and be another cog in the machine. The young boy’s name is Victor Menezes.

However, nothing he predicted happened in his life. After completing his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay, the young boy completed his MBA from MIT Sloan of Management. After his studies, he joined Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking and later became the CEO of Citibank. Also, the young guy who only wanted to drink coffee and be another government employee became a board member of ETS, among his many other achievements. To put the cherry on top, he did not marry his boss’s daughter; instead, he married miss India.

Victor Menezes’s story is a classic triumph story. A guy achieves beyond what he had pictured. We all want some form of this in our lives, to acquire something outside our imagination.

However, if we look around, stories like these are rare. Most of us may not get to that level of success. We can’t all be the CEO. Also, some of us fail and may never thrive.

So for the rest of us, where does success fit in our lives?

For the average Joe

Once, I interviewed for a position at a new company for a role that was almost my dream job. I was excited about the opportunity. After a month of preparation, the four rounds of back-and-forths were complete. The interviews went well, so I thought. I negotiated my salary with the recruiter, and she told me that she would extend an offer earlier next week.

I started imagining what I would do when I got the job. I thought about all the money I could save and the places I could visit. It was a dream come true. I desperately waited for Monday.

However, when the time came, I got a rejection email. It was a massive blow to my ego. It shattered my confidence to sit for an interview for quite a while. I kept thinking about what went wrong. It certainly was a massive failure of my life.

But was it?

A couple of weeks later, while hanging out with my friends, I mentioned what had happened. I shared how I felt defeated.

“Interviewing is an art on its own. You are getting good a good practice.” One of my friends remarked. Another friend remembered how he had to sit for 17 interviews before the offer finally came in.

“It’s a big bump in your way to your dream, but not the one you can’t get over,” my friend Ernest mentioned.

Despite the crushing feelings of disappointment, I felt great that day. I had not achieved anything, but my loss was no longer bothering me. While returning home, I recognized it is a huge win to have people in your life who support you. I had managed to find some form of triumph in my life despite what had lately happened.

The unlucky ones

In 1996, a six-month-old girl named Aisha Chaudhary had to undergo a bone marrow transplant because she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Doctors had predicted that the girl would not live more than a year.

Despite the circumstances, Aisha proved everyone wrong. She started giving motivational speeches when she was 15 years old. Former Vice President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari released her book, My Little Epiphanies, in New Delhi on 13 April 2015. She was named INK fellow and gave speeches in 2011 and 2013. She died at the young age of 18 but taught everyone how to live.

The word “success” has been a cliche in recent times. Search the word on any social media platform, and you will receive hundreds of motivational videos on how to be successful. Tips on these posts include when to wake up, study, how to walk and talk to people, and many more.

However, the playing field is not equal for everybody. If you are a student like Victor Menezes, from a high-class society who could afford an excellent education back in 1967, you are well ahead in life than everyone else.

But no tips are helpful if you are like Aisha Chaudhary, who struggled to breathe every day. On the other hand, you don’t need any help if you are Victor Menezes. For the rest of us, we need to keep trying.

While writing this article, I learned that everyone needs to define success for themselves depending on their situation. We could be successful while living a simple life. Not everyone gets to be the CEO or an olympian, and it is okay.

Finally, the playing field is not equal for everybody. If you are a rich student like Victor Menezes, you might find it easier to go abroad and study at MIT and become the CEO of a big company. On the other hand, if you are Aisha Chaudhary, suffering from an autoimmune disease from birth, triumph means something different for you.

For everyone else, we have to define our “mythical goal post” at every step of our lives, even when we stumble and fall flat.