There is this belief that is widely populated in the media that to have a successful life, you have to achieve great things. And to achieve great things, you must first have big, ambitious goals. Aim for the mountaintop, get going, and conquering the ‘mountain’ is the definition of success.
I had and still have big dreams. I wanted to create an impact to the world that can last through time. These dreams can make me work hard at times. At other times, it can be make me really depressed when I take stock of my current reality. This is probably true for many people.
It is absolutely healthy and normal for us to pursue progress and superiority. I think that’s a natural evolution of humans. However if we were to define our life as whether it is a success or failure depending whether we reach the ‘mountaintop’, can we ever considered our life as complete? After all, there are only 2 possible outcomes with this mindset: 1) Not reaching our ‘mountaintop’, and we will deem our life as a failure, or 2) Reaching the ‘mountaintop’ and we ‘succeeded’, but what’s next? Another mountaintop?
I remembered I had the goal of winning a championship when I was still competitive in sports. I trained so hard for it and actually won. The victorious feeling was great but it lasted only a couple of weeks. After that, you wonder what’s next.
I managed to exit profitably for my second start-up and there was this triumphant feeling, but after a few weeks, you wonder what’s next. And I realise I still have not make any significant dent to the world. Now this can be depressing.
However I have started to learn to look at life as just many multiple events. Each event can be a joy in itself. A musician may like to be a top-class performer but if he did take joy in every single minute spent practicing his instrument, he would have lived a very fulfilling life even if he did not make it to the big-time. After all, there are many internal and external factors that affect the success probability.
And digging deep down, are we aiming to reach the mountaintop because we enjoy the challenge, or are we aiming for recognition from others?
Perhaps it is ok to be normal. Enjoy each individual challenges. We may or may not reach our mountaintop but we can at least enjoy and savour the journey. As long as we think we are contributing to others, being normal is still special.
My thoughts 