Aspiring to be ......Somebody?

The whole thing is coming full circle. After all, it’s a generational thing. Couple decades ago, it was me. Now it’s my boys… I guess a few things don’t change no matter what. "What do you want to be"? Elderly people often ask this question. After all, somewhere deep down we all want to see our children to be more successful than us. With that base, we start directing our life and building our career path. No doubt, success demands a lot of hard work, dedication and perseverance. But when do we become successful? All of us have grown up with listening to elderly folks telling us to study hard to become ‘somebody’ big. Along the way the success is measured against someone else. The successful person is always someone else. And we are driven to catch up. The success, after all, is a fluid thing. What defines success keeps changing and catch up game is timeless. The moment we reach a milestone in our graph of success, the expectation height builds higher and then strive begins all over again. Absolutely nothing wrong in that. If we stop, life will be boring like hell. But along the way, sometimes we can loose our sight. There is a difference between aspiring to be somebody and aspiring to be big. The motivation should come from achieving our own success and being proud of that. It should not be based on trying to emulate someone else’s definition of success. I remember the time when I was reading Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The book is thought provoking and very well written. But I often felt that if someone doesn’t have any of those habits or if someone only has a couple, does that make you less effective? Does your self esteem go down if your habits are different than those of the so called effective people? And do habits really make you effective? After all, we have one life to live. Why measure it against someone else’s? Self esteem and pride are integral part of our own existence. I see it everyday in beaming faces of my little boys. As they are exploring this new world , they are trying to do new things on their own. Their faces lit up on every success, every clap and praise they receive. At the tender age of two, they don’t need to compare themselves to others. Their success is their own and they are delighted with their own achievements. That’s the spirit of success and happiness. We all had that spirit before and we have it now. I believe that we are that ‘somebody’ even now. You become big as years pass by. But you don’t become someone else. You are who you are. Aspiring to be somebody also means being unhappy with your own self. The more you imitate others, the more you lose your own identity. Be proud of who you are and where you are in your life. Celebrate your life. And define success on your own terms!