It's a good and uneasy question to answer at same time. But, let's try to scratch the surface of amplitude the term can lead.
For me, sucess it's not something we can measure through a restricted view. It includes a bunch of topics, situations and circumstances we find every day in our lives.
Sucess depends on several factors at a certain moment of your life. You can't say you have a sucessful life just because you won a promotion at your workplace. This is just a victory amidst battlefield that life is. And victories are sometimes ephemeral events.
On one hand sucess involves estability in health, money, professional, loving and familiar relationships. I believe this is the selfish-human and why not capitalist side of the term sucess. It represents so well that image everything's coming up roses in somebody's life.
On the other hand, sucess mean deeper and meaningful things. Here, sucess relates to crucial elements like the privilege to be alive, be able to breath, have food on your table, have a house to shelter when it's too cold or hot outside, have a family to take care of you when you're sick for example. It's a more emotive side of sucess I'd say.
So, I see sucess as a thing with levels of importance. You can have a worldly sucess but not have the inner sucess. The internal sucess is more important than the external sucess. Because, if you have the more important in your life, the internal or meaningful sucess, the rest is just a matter of time. Good outcomes will come to you when you're not waiting for them.
Sucess is not permanent as some can think, but something that has a deadline. We're not made to experience only the ups from a static position. We need to cross what life proposed us. Facing challenges,hurdles and difficulties taking lessom form them is really a part of the real concept of sucess.
Proposal for you
Have your say about what sucess really mean to you, dropping a few lines in the comment's section or writing a post entitled "What Sucess is for Me". I'd appreciate to know how you'd define it.
Comments
Success is "NOW" for me. Daniel, I could attempt to explain that rather obscure sounding statement in my own words but, someone beat me to it so I'll allow him the honor.
Time isn't precious at all, because it's an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time - past and future - the more you miss the Now,...the most precious thing there is.
Eckhart Tolle
I think Tolle proves a valid point in that statement. Since attempting to live by it and therefore in the Now, I've noticed my own success in dealings with others has risen. In other words; If I'm fully engaged when interacting with friends, colleagues, and loved ones, and not allowing my mind to wander into the past or future, I'm able to fully experience those things truly God given...love, compassion, empathy, charity, etc...That's how I define success.