The Formula for a Successful Human Being

I keep pondering this over in my head lately, trying to figure out the key ingredients, the certain points of similarity, between those who find personal success in life.
Measure success how you will, not just financial as society dictates...you get educated enough to do a job that benefits society, and thus benefits you...
To some, wealth is success. To others, love is success. Whatever it is an individual strives for...what are the key elements that determine whether they will succeed or fail, no matter how determined they might be?
Can't just be dumb luck, fate, faith.
I guess I'm looking for a theory..a probability..an Einstein factor if you will.
Is it something in the DNA itself?
Just thinking aloud...

I consider happiness to be the greatest measure of success. It is in the end what I believe most of us strive for that we translate materially or emotionally. Though some would say that genuine happiness is based within us and that striving for happiness outside ourselves is a display of primal discontent at being human and therefore vulnerable.

And that makes sense to me on one level.

If we base our happiness on circumstance, on a reliance on others, we are open to disappointment. We learn inevitably that we can't control others and how they feel or react to us. In the end, the only reactions, feelings and fate we control are our own.

But then there is also value in being vulnerable, I think. Learning to accept disappointments as not primarily an end, but a potential for beginning again.

To balance the two is where I strive to find my own well of happiness.

reply to post by AccessDenied


A successful human being is someone who has one thing, one thing only, happiness. If YOU are happy with how YOU have spent YOUR time here, then YOU are successful. Who cares what anyone else thinks or how anyone else sees YOU. YOUR life is for YOU, noone else, they've all got their own.
So, when YOU are dying, and YOU will know when YOU are, if YOU'RE satisfied with what YOU'VE done, with what YOU know, with how YOU'VE lived, then YOU are successful.

If you have good family, good friends and good health your half way there.

I have enjoyed an enormous amount of success in my life both financially, personally and spiritually. But.....

For some reason I didn't handle success very well and became heavily involved in alcohol, drugs, and what I term "white trash behavior"; I melted down and lost everything including my self respect, sense of honor and pride.

The struggle back from fear, and utter loneliness was not easy but that journey taught me many things and without that experience I don't think I could have the "blissful" moments I am now able to enjoy with the one's I love.

I hope no one has to go thru the "darkness of the spirit" I did, but now I have a yard stick and a comparison to judge what success and happiness really and truly is.

This may be an over simplifican but to me success and happiness is not being alone.

namaste

[edit on 1-6-2009 by whaaa]

Originally posted by whaaa
I have enjoyed an enormous amount of success in my life both financially, personally and spiritually. But.....

For some reason I didn't handle success very well and became heavily involved in alcohol, drugs, and what I term "white trash behavior"; I melted down and lost everything including my self respect, sense of honor and pride.

The struggle back from fear, and utter loneliness was not easy but that journey taught me many things and without that experience I don't think I could have the "blissful" moments I am now able to enjoy with the one's I love.

I hope no one has to go thru the "darkness of the spirit" I did, but now I have a yard stick and a comparison to judge what success and happiness really and truly is.

This may be an over simplifican but to me success and happiness is not being alone.

namaste

[edit on 1-6-2009 by whaaa]

WOW! I completely agree, that sometimes you need a way to measure, not yourself with others..just yourself-BETTER.

Namaste

I see that some have listed Happiness as a measure of success. To me that means you see Happiness as a destination? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Happiness is ever increasing..never stops..
What made you happy today, might not tomorrow.And you are on to the search for something else.
But still, there are those who seem to find happiness everywhere, and those who do not.Doesn't matter if you are a good person, kind at heart, or lower than a snakes belly....There has to be a way to formulate how success happens.

Originally posted by AccessDenied
There has to be a way to formulate how success happens.

I think if there were a standard formula we would all be successful and there would be a lot fewer self-help books populating the bookstore. Which is why, I suppose we as humans tend to apply it to more concrete terms like money and possessions.

For myself, I choose happiness. As you said, it is ever-increasing potentially and therefore there is no limit to the "success" I can achieve.

Find a way to measure success on your own terms and the formula for achieving it may well be inherent.

AD, thanks for the opportunity to actually evaluate how to become successful in the skin we call human. I erroneously thought that material
possessions symbolized success but maturity has shown me that; having a passion for something, almost anything, to become involved in that can take your mind to that transcendental realm where time and space stand still. Be it making love, playing the oboe, golf, growing a garden, even the internet.

Now, I'm talking about passion, not obsession. Sometimes though they mingle and the success you once enjoyed evaporates.

Many of my contemporaries have what at first glance looks like a wonderful life with the trophy wife, Porsche, huge adobe house furnished with impeccable taste, money, opulence and free time but when I look in their eyes, all I see is a tombstone.

Success is in the Heart. I hope everyone gets to experience what I have been so blessed to have found in something so simple as wire and wood.

Bless your Heart AD!

This is an intersting discussion, and most of you who are speaking of being happy as being succesful make very good points, but heres a different spin on it...

Success in itself is the idea of a conclusion, an accomplishment- "We were successful in completing the order." To me, when something is a success, there was a lack of the initial quality that would justify something as being a success. As in if the order is not completed, we must do so in order to be successful.

However, attempting to label ones life as successful or not, is based upon the idea that before you had a life, you set out to live that life with specific intentions in mind. Really this statement should not be considered an absurdity in reality, because many religions believe people live a life to learn lessons, and live more life than one. (Kharmic wheel of reincarnation etc)

So did you have an idea of what you wanted to work for when you came into this world? Or where we just born into the world in a moment of newness, with no history of ourselves before our physical birth?

I believe really that your life is always a success, because you are living it. Your life is a precious gift and just the ability "to be" in this universe and realize that your are conciousnes in physical form is truely a gift.

Realizing this fact, to me, is success. When you are aware of yourself on the deepest level, and can see beyond the contrasts of reality into the suchness of existence, to me this is the only form of the word success you could apply to life, and heres a very simple reason why.

You will die one day. It's on your schedule, unless we can create nano-medicine capable of rebuilding the body on a constant basis, one day we will die. Everything and anything that you could consider success, even your happiness, may cease to exist fully at one time. If you cannot experience it, it is no longer a success. I'm not being cynical here, im just reinforcing the idea that life itself is a success, realize the suchness of reality beyond what you perceive as good and bad, and you'll find that life itself is always a success, just because you are living it.

Not that I agree, but just to put out my extreme evolutionary side of it:

You're a successful human if you've successfully passed along your genes and reproduced healthy offspring.

I don't think it's really true anymore, with all the other factors. But that would be the scientific version, I think.

I just got done watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation" The Offspring (1990), even made one of the quotes my signature.

Lal: Then why do you still try to emulate humans? What purpose does it serve except to remind you that you are incomplete?

Lt. Cmdr. Data: I have asked myself that many times, as I have struggled to be more human. Until I realized it is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yields its own rewards.

Link

There is the adage: Its the journey, not the destination. I felt a tiny swirl of emotion hearing the above quote. It's probably not a formula, but striving to be a (better) human can lead to being a Successful human being I hope.

reply to post by PontiacWarrior


Indeed, a very raw version of my post is "its the journey, not the destination." It's also intersting to note that the nature of the universe is also just that- a journey. The universe is an infinite journey, who knows honostly what could become of it when it's 10 times its current age? Life is a journey, we get too wrapped up in the idea of the conclusion, it's where i believe anxiety stems from.

Wonderful topic btw.

reply to post by Ansiroth


So in your opinion,success in life as a whole, is measured by the smaller successes in life ....true, that could apply. Chronic pessimist Iam though, and when your failures far outnumber the successes...it's hard to see things that way.
Originally posted by Whaaa

AD, thanks for the opportunity to actually evaluate how to become successful in the skin we call human. I erroneously thought that material
possessions symbolized success but maturity has shown me that; having a passion for something, almost anything, to become involved in that can take your mind to that transcendental realm where time and space stand still. Be it making love, playing the oboe, golf, growing a garden, even the internet.

Now, I'm talking about passion, not obsession. Sometimes though they mingle and the success you once enjoyed evaporates.

Many of my contemporaries have what at first glance looks like a wonderful life with the trophy wife, Porsche, huge adobe house furnished with impeccable taste, money, opulence and free time but when I look in their eyes, all I see is a tombstone.

Success is in the Heart. I hope everyone gets to experience what I have been so blessed to have found in something so simple as wire and wood.

Bless your Heart AD!

My dear friend...possessions mean less to me in this life than the dirt under my feet. At least dirt has a purpose, never needs to be replaced, and it's free.
I've said it many times on this site..all you can take with you when you leave this life is knowledge, experience, and love....
Your family and the government take all else...

reply to post by whaaa

The struggle back from fear, and utter loneliness was not easy but that journey taught me many things and without that experience I don't think I could have the "blissful" moments I am now able to enjoy with the one's I love.

isn't that the truth of it though?

I think you can come to appreciate certain things sometimes without that experience - but maybe you can't really know it the same way

I hope no one has to go thru the "darkness of the spirit" I did, but now I have a yard stick and a comparison to judge what success and happiness really and truly is.

I would never wish it for someone else either - not really

but then, I guess I would - because I know what good can come from it - it's worth it

I'm glad you are where you are now whaaa

Originally posted by whaaa
I have enjoyed an enormous amount of success in my life both financially, personally and spiritually. But.....

For some reason I didn't handle success very well and became heavily involved in alcohol, drugs, and what I term "white trash behavior"; I melted down and lost everything including my self respect, sense of honor and pride.

The struggle back from fear, and utter loneliness was not easy but that journey taught me many things and without that experience I don't think I could have the "blissful" moments I am now able to enjoy with the one's I love.

I hope no one has to go thru the "darkness of the spirit" I did, but now I have a yard stick and a comparison to judge what success and happiness really and truly is.

This may be an over simplifican but to me success and happiness is not being alone.

namaste

[edit on 1-6-2009 by whaaa]

Actually Whaaa, I think people sometimes need that darkness of the soul to get them to wake up, realize what is important, the true goal, what is valuable, and what it means to be utterly alone. Gratitude can do wonders for a lack of success feeling. Validations from loved ones can ease the voids. I am in the middle of one as we speak, have been in and out of success as well. That yardstick can change depending on who you are around. Finding your own personal yardstick is what is important in the process.
The brushfires and falls from ladders clear the way for new measurements. New experiences, new tests and trials.
I have been unsuccessful in some important areas to me, and successful in ones that shouldn't have mattered, but the only way to find that out is try. Learn. and try again.