When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?
The car stopped at the traffic light. I was driving it. The red light had a few seconds left on its timer. Sometimes a few seconds are sufficient to observe a bit of the world around.
A shared cab with strangers mostly busy with their phones. A school bus full of children who were pretty cheerful and excited in their own world. A lady wearing an extra-wide googles, her attire and expression suggested she might have been out driving to her work. A gentleman in the car behind talking to his co-passenger, they probably worked at the same place or shared the same route. There was a lot more, but this was all I could grasp at the moment.
The light turned green and I was off. I was not alone; I was with my friend. I was going to drop him at the metro train station ahead. He had been staring at some videos on a popular social media platform. All of sudden he spoke up, “see this”, as he turned his phone’s screen towards me. There was a young man in it, driving an expensive car, wearing what looked like an expensive set of clothes, a visually attractive girl was accompanying him. No offense to the young man or the girl or my friend who showed it to me, but I was frankly hoping for something more to it or maybe it was my understanding which was lacking.
“So, what exactly do you want me to see?” I asked my friend. A question he found strange.
“What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see, this is the life of a successful person. This is what everyone should aim for.”, said my friend going through some more videos of the same person.
I could not find a response to what he said. But I did ponder on the thought of what a successful person is later. ‘What exactly is this success which defines a successful person? What are the terms to be defined as successful? Could it be as obvious as the young man in the video? Does something which makes a person feel successful define the success of another as well? Don’t people succeed at something and fail at another every other day?’ There are just too many questions and I am still figuring it all out.
However, if I am asked to visualise something as the meaning of success, images of people smiling from happiness will go through my mind. I mean after all who can be more successful than a person who has succeeded in finding a reason which genuinely makes him or her happy and brings a smile on his or her face.
Early Morning Memories 