Letter to daughter: Meaning of Success to Me!

Zayb, Zaryaab,

The desire to be successful is in all of us. It is partially an outcome of our personal ambition and partially what society perceives as successful. Mostly our frustration and stress in life comes from the fact that we are not able to fulfill the societal perception of success. Let me give you an example. If I were an artist, I should feel fulfilled if I were able to produce an outstanding piece of art that was well appreciated, that meant something to me, that I had put my all into. However, for the world around I would be accomplished and successful only it this piece of art sold for a million dollars. And this image of success would interfere with my own idea of what success means to me, as it does. But it’s time we teach our kids to break the cycle.

Forever we are mixing success with the ability to create wealth. But they are exclusive terms. People tend to think they overlap and make their own lives and lives of people around them miserable by doing so.  Success means the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Wealth is an abundance of valuable possession or money. Aren’t they two exclusive terms? Sure you can gather wealth by being successful and sometimes the other way round. But you can also be successful without being wealthy and wealthy without being successful.

Let’s take for example the son of a very successful Bollywood star. The star is still very successful and hence wealthy even in his late 60s. But his son is only wealthy from his inheritance. He is not a successful Bollywood star. He could be successful at other things that I don’t know about. But if he derives his sense of worth from wealth he would be a happy man, but he derives his sense of worth from the number of hits he has delivered he could be nothing less than miserable.

You need to find your success. Don’t run behind wealth. Money is a means of livelihood. You need to find a way to make money for sure. If you enjoy for you do for a living you are bound to be successful. But if you don’t that is fine too. The work you do to earn a living can be different from what you do to feel accomplished. You will find success in what you love doing. I wish and pray that you find success and wealth in what you love doing. But if that doesn’t happen don’t judge yourself and be miserable because of what success means to the world. Define your own success and achieve it.

I love my job, I am doing well, I excel at what I do. However do I feel successful always. No. I feel like I could be much better at a creative business. I haven’t defined my own success. But I’m sure someday I will and always remember so will you. Never give up. It’s never too late. Each one of us is destined to be successful. We just have to seek our destiny.

KAMYABI KE PECHE BHAGNE SE AGAR KAYABI HASIL HOTI  TOH SARI DUNIYA APNE KO KAMYAB MANTI, HAR KOI KHUSH HOTA. KYONKI HAR KOI KISSI DAUD MEIN LAGA HUA HAI, JUTA HUA HAI. AGAR PAISE SE KAMYABI TOLO GE TO SHAYAD MAYUSI PAOGE. LEKIN YEH BHI SACH HAI KI KAMYABI RASTE MEIN PADHI NAHI MILTI, KOSHISH ZAROORI HAI. TOH RASTA CHUNIYE, KOSHISH KARIYE, UMEED RAKHIYE… PHIR MUQADAR KO TALASH KARIYE

Your middle class, yet to be successful mom.

I’m not super wealthy, nor am I successful as of now. But I’m happy. Because I have an average life, middle class income, average looks, average home, average intelligence. Everything about me is average. This takes me to my next letter to you which is ‘ Success in being average’. Ciao until I write gain.