Are you really a success?

In early human times a mans destiny or future was determined largely by the family he was born into, which determined his status and effectively his station in life.  You were either born into aristocracy or you were a slave, or ordinary citizen, with very little in the way of a career, other than that which your father occupied.  If you were a citizen there were very few entrepreneurial offerings and life was a continuation of the life of your father or family.  The ordinary people considered their inferiority as an effect of the order of nature.  We have truly advanced in the sense that we now have opportunities for many more to succeed from the poor to the pinnacles of society.  There are many more stories of ordinary people succeeding in worldly terms.  The result though, was a new concern and that was that people began to feel that their pride and sense of worth was determined by achievements and we are humiliated if we do not reach the goals, we set for ourselves.  It was even the belief at a time, that where there is no attempt, there can be no failure and with no failure there is no humiliation.  We can try therefore to either attempt more and more things to sustain us and make us feel a sense of self worth, or we can simply reduce the number of things, we want to achieve.  There is a certain amount of relief when we begin to let go of too many pretences and desires and start to focus on the few, that we can achieve. The world however very often does not accept things like poverty, age or fat or even obscurity.  We are encouraged to invest more time in achievements and belongings.  This causes faith to be questioned and many people just think that this time on earth is the end of our journey and consequently there is far more pressure to succeed and the feeling that we are being watched every second of this life, because we have a brief opportunity on this earth to shine.  Others with faith, tend to see this life as a brief prelude to eternity and success in this life is not as important, against the backdrop of an eternal life.  Too many people if feel fall into the former category and this life is spent trying to gather as much wealth and happiness as they can, without their eye on a full life 'well spent'.  They are all about immediate gratification and accumulation of things, to make them feel better.  I am all for the decision to commit to a new goal or dream, but certainly one that can be actively treasured and pursued and which will result in a life of sustained growth, towards an eternal future.  If you want something new in your life take the first step, by all means.  If you are not happy with a relationship or a current job - change it with good reason - you can do almost anything you set your mind to and there are countless examples.  But always do so from the premise, that this life is not the end and that though it matters, what you do in this life, it is not to be measured against world views, standards or opinions, but against eternal criteria.