Is it true that the road to success in life is to become a millionaire? To follow the steps of all the famous people we know? Do we all need this goal setting? Do we all need to have as personal goals “To be a millionaire”?
I get frustrated seeing everyone feeling like they somehow aren’t enough, that something is missing from their lives, that they should be and do more. So I ask you, dear reader, Are you dwelling on how other people are so damn rich and you are not? They travel the world and have big cars, big pools, and big bucks? Yes, our world tells us that we need to have more and more to be “successful” people, to be “happy”. The more you have – money, cars, houses, friends, food, clothes, shoes, watches, TVs -, the more “successful” you apparently are.
But are you really? (cliché? no?)
What are your personal goals, what is your personal road to success?
Most people think that they want to be millionaires. This idea is just so much in our heads all the time that we begin to think that the key to our happiness and the reason we may be unhappy now is because you don’t have those bucks, you don’t have that job. Maybe you think that somehow your life is not as great as other peoples’. You scroll through Instagram and see others go places, do things, and you envy them and think that somehow your life isn’t as it should be.
Somehow you are not there yet, but you definitely need to be there – whatever that is. And so you continuously drag yourself down and along the way, your self-worth. You might be thinking that if you set some crazy set of personal goals and they be very very smart goals, then you will become a millionaire and be happy forever.
This is all nonsense. Marketing stuff. Because everyone wants the cheap and fast answer.
Let’s face reality. The real road to success.
You want to climb the ladder and be the boss of them all? You want to be like that model? You want to be the president?
But what do you do in your everyday life? How do you spend your time? Because your time is your life. And your time leads to things in life that you like. Every day, you choose to do certain things instead of others. This leads to habits.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Will Durant, Philosopher and Historian
You may say to others that you like to read books, go for walks, go to the gym, or I don’t know what else. But then, in reality, you don’t actually do those things that much. Although you think about them, a lot. But you don’t really do them as much as you spend time thinking about them. And this is a very important self-reflective way of seeing what you are and what you do.
How many hours a week you spend doing the things you say you do to others? It all comes down to that quote. We all need to face this fact. Even if we still get bombarded on our feeds with the illusion that more equals happy or successful in life.
Quit Instagram if it makes you feel like crap every time you see other peoples’ “perfect” lives.
You want to be a millionaire? The problem is your goal setting
We don’t really want to be millionaires. Not really. Who wants to work and work and then work again? No no no. We only want the good stuff. That’s what we all think there is to it. We think that our life will magically be better if we become millionaires, that we won’t have to face life’s problems anymore, that we won’t have problems anymore, that everything will be just how we want it to be because we have the money for it.
When in reality, we will still have our problems, and possibly, bigger ones then. Because, you see, life’s all about fixing problems that come your way. This is what life is all about. If you don’t have anything to do, you’ll just become useless.
The best example of this uselessness is the Coronavirus situation. You can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything, you must sit and relax, watch Netflix and play some games. And this is driving people mad! Those that are more impulsive and in need for things to happen, have started to break the rules and got out for walks to see the trees, the ocean, the streets. Just to do something besides the usual.
When you have things to do, you live. When you don’t have things to do, things to solve, you become lifeless. Nothing satisfies you. This is what slowly dying looks like. Knowlea
Life is About Solving Problems, big or small
After reading Mark Manson’s book, about how to say fu** it to everything, I have reached the conclusion that we all live in some kind of numbing bubbles. We don’t see life as it is. It’s exactly how Orwell said (and Manson cited in his book), that it’s really freaking hard to see what’s beneath our noses. What we need to see is that no money is going to save your life from problems. You will always have them. They will just be different.
Create Smart Objectives, not Intangible Dreams
You need to be setting real tangible personal goals, smart goals that actually fit YOU and YOUR reality. Don’t think about years ahead of time, like as if in 10 years, when you will have that money for that business you will succeed in life and be fully happy. This is living in dreamlandia.
If you want to be achieving goals, you need to actually make tangible goals. Things you can do, everyday. Step by step. A tangible “road to success”.
Success/Happiness doesn’t only have one definition!
Everyone will be happy/successful in their own way. Success and happiness cannot be defined in only one way for everyone in this huge planet. We all have different needs, wants, wishes, ideas and so on. This goal setting to become a millionaire is not a personal goal that fits everybody. And it shouldn’t.
Don’t dream about other people’s dreams
Don’t appropriate other people’s dreams and pretend them to be your own. I have encountered so many people that adopt other people’s dreams and visions instead of forming their own. Because they believe in the opinion of the group, to make them feel accepted and appreciated. Because they haven’t spent enough time trying to understand who they are, what they like.
Then this leads crappy-feelings about their lives, unfulfillment. Why can’t we all just be ourselves and believe deeply in our own dreams and desires instead of adopting the supposed and accepted road of success?
We all know that we can’t all be doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists, techies, IT mega starts. Not everybody can be goal setting to become a millionaire. Who would build our roads? Who would drive our taxis? Who would deliver your mail to your house? Who would restock your food on the supermarket shelves? You get the idea.
We all have different skills and personalities, and we should adopt our lives according to them, instead of fixating on others people’s lives.
We are a Gigantic-interconnected Net
The idea that we need a big purpose because others are so sufficient and done so much and you did not – is false! We can’t think like this. It’s simply stupid. And again, illogical. Coronavirus helped us with understanding that. Understand what exactly? Well, if you didn’t actually realize this yet, now you will. We now know that we all are part of a huge net, that is completely connected, and if one of those small nets breaks, all the others will face the consequences. We might think that we are insignificant and don’t contribute to anyone’s lives, but in reality, we do. A lot. Because of this interconnected net that links us all.
Don’t believe? Tired of those cute quotes about this? Let me explain:
Random Hypothetical Life Story
You, John, work at a restaurant, and you decide you are pissed and just don’t show up to open the restaurant that day. The owner, Bill, will get absolutely pissed at you, he will have to quickly find a person to go as fast as possible in your place, and you’ll be disrupting Bill’s family life.
Then imagine that Bill had a daughter, named Emily. And Emily wanted to go to a place for that weekend but had to stay at home with the little brother because her dad went to work that day because you didn’t show up, and she had a huge important talk with her mother, Sandy, which, by the way, doesn’t live with them anymore because they had a divorce. So, Sandy didn’t get the chance to hear from her daughter Emily that day and because of that, she died later that night because they haven’t spoken for months and she got seriously ill a couple months back and didn’t want to say anything because of other problems in the family.
In the meantime, since Bill came a bit late to the restaurant that day as you didn’t say you wouldn’t show up, the restaurant had to open a bit later than it should, and that day, there was supposed to be a proposal from a guy that comes there every summer (he lives up north), his name’s Joshuah. But because the restaurant wasn’t open on time, when his girlfriend came to the restaurant alone (because he had arranged a surprise for her, so that when she would come there, the staff would greet her before he would come to her), since the restaurant was closed, she understood that the so called surprise was actually a sign for her that he didn’t love her anymore (they had a huge fight last night), and so, she just left. She packed her bags and got a taxi home. And he couldn’t reach her that whole day, and later that night, she got home to a friend and got wasted and in the middle of the crying, sobbing and drunken words, she slept with her friend.
The end.
Conclusion of the sad story
What about that? Too harsh? Well, you never know what actually happens to the people that you let down when you don’t show up to work! (ha!)
But the conclusion of the story is that you will really never know what will happen to others if you stopped existing. Because they will not tell you, you won’t be able to see their lives without you. But you will impact a whole bunch of people, you just never think about it. And in this story, there are only like a few people and a small moment of only a day in the life of only 1 person. But imagine a whole day of not being where you should be, and how that would change e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
We all have dozens of everyday contacts that are connected to us. We are all connected. Always. Never ever forget that again and start thinking that your life is insignificant because it’s not.
In Conclusion, the Road to Success is NOT About Becoming a Millionaire
I hope, after reading this post, you will feel somehow less stressed, more attuned with your own desires, needs and wishes, and slowly but definitely start to think differently about how you should set your life perspective about yourself and others. Because these is no such thing as “road to success” anyway. We all need to drop this insane idea of this one and only road to success, road to happiness.
Let us all define independently and without prejudice our own goals of life and objectives.
So, scream with me!:
- You create your own road to success, not society, not your friends, not Instagram, and most importantly, not your family either.
- Forget about the “being a millionaire dream”. It’s making you believe you are worthless.
- We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Find out your own desires and independent goals for your life!
- Find out what problems you want to have in your life. Because there’s no life without them.
- Happiness is not defined by others. You define what it is, for you.
- Drop the “big purpose” non-sense. We all have our roles and people we impact EVERYDAY!
great advice!