DiscipLine......

Different people measure success differently. To some, success means acquisition of wealth, to others, it is position and authority , a third group believes success is security and handful of people regard happiness and joyful living as success.
One definition of success for me is ‘the progressive realization of a predetermined worthy goal’. A second definition is ‘attainment of wealth, fame or position.’ both definitions have one thing in common, namely, realization or accomplishment. The person who sets his heart on wealth and works for amassing it and does not suffer any loss on account of his efforts to make money is said to have achieved success in a worldly or materialistic sense. But material gains do not attract me, even though such gains give me to spend money in carefree manner on leisure activities. Money is necessary and important in life. But I do not regard money as the be all and end all of life. One must have enough to make both ends meet, but to struggle strenuously to make more money and to spend anxious moments as to the outcome of one’s efforts is to lose one’s peace of mind. Sitting at the top of a heap of money is to sit on a powder keg one never knows when there will be a sudden explosion.
Position and power too do not attract me. A man who hankers after position and power also desires to have pelf, for power and pelf often go together. The person who sets his heart on high social position and struggles hard to attain that position will invariably resort to devious means and sacrifice his principles. He is very much like the person whose ambition is to make money. Here I have to distinguish between position sought after and that which comes unsought. One who gets fame or position or recognition without soliciting it is really a person of substance. Such a person may be described as having achieved success, for his elevation to a high is not through the adoption of devious means but through selfless and conscientious hard work. I too wish to attain success in this manner for there is much happiness in the attainment of a position of honour through selfless, hard work. The third set believes in security. Security means safety and freedom from anxiety or danger. a person who cares for security would have also to care for money, for without money there is no freedom in our present world. That is to say, one has to be as materialistic in one’s outlook as the man who looks for the success in pelf and power. I do not. Regard security as a yardsticks of success in life.
The majority of people are after wealth, position, power and security. It is only a handful of people who ignore all these worldly achievements and care for happiness. An eminent person has written an essay entitled ‘my idea of success’, in which he speaks of having attained success by means of the happiness he has derived out of the work done during his leisure and out of ‘an essential humanity’. more or less the same thought is expressed in Kipling’s poem.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,
And which is more you’ll be a man, my son!