What does success mean for a person? Many people are professionally successful - at the peak of their careers - when they realize that ‘this isn’t what I wanted to do in the first place!’ But most others aren't even this fortunate - they never realise what they want in life!
In fact, it is very difficult to put a finger on ‘what people want?’ Any human being will have multiple dimensions of needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy is probably the most simplified representation of these dimensions. Maslow groups needs in broad groups such as – Biological/Physical needs, Safety, Love/belonging, Status (esteem) and Spiritual needs. However, needs are much diverse to fit in these broad groups. For example ‘Esteem’ depends not only on how people themselves perceive their lifestyle or job, but also on how they think others perceive these.
As another example, consider the role a person’s ‘salary’ plays in determining his self esteem. Firstly, if the salary satisfies his basic financial needs like food, clothing, housing etc to his satisfaction i.e. if his salary can afford him a house which he thinks is big enough for himself and his family and so on. Then comes the aspect, how his salary compares with his peers and what his peers or family feel about his salary level (or what they convey him about their perceptions). All these are of course affected by the kind of peers he has and his upbringing. And to think of it - the salary is only one of the aspects which govern a person’s choice of a job; and a job only one of the aspects governing a person’s perception of his success.
It is easy to summarise that success or the perception of it depends on extremely complicated mesh of factors and their relationships. I will not attempt to simplify the answers - but the questions can definitely be simplified:
Maelstroms of the Mind - I
PS: ‘He’ and ‘him’ refer to both genders for the sake of simplicity.
In fact, it is very difficult to put a finger on ‘what people want?’ Any human being will have multiple dimensions of needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy is probably the most simplified representation of these dimensions. Maslow groups needs in broad groups such as – Biological/Physical needs, Safety, Love/belonging, Status (esteem) and Spiritual needs. However, needs are much diverse to fit in these broad groups. For example ‘Esteem’ depends not only on how people themselves perceive their lifestyle or job, but also on how they think others perceive these.
As another example, consider the role a person’s ‘salary’ plays in determining his self esteem. Firstly, if the salary satisfies his basic financial needs like food, clothing, housing etc to his satisfaction i.e. if his salary can afford him a house which he thinks is big enough for himself and his family and so on. Then comes the aspect, how his salary compares with his peers and what his peers or family feel about his salary level (or what they convey him about their perceptions). All these are of course affected by the kind of peers he has and his upbringing. And to think of it - the salary is only one of the aspects which govern a person’s choice of a job; and a job only one of the aspects governing a person’s perception of his success.
It is easy to summarise that success or the perception of it depends on extremely complicated mesh of factors and their relationships. I will not attempt to simplify the answers - but the questions can definitely be simplified:
- Does success depend on what work a person does or on how a person does it or both?
- Is doing anything well, the source of happiness and satisfaction for a human being or is it doing what he/she likes to do?
- If a person does not succeed in achieving his desires, but has made an effort to achieve them – will he be happy?
- If a person succeeds in achieving an unsought goal – will it make him happy?
Maelstroms of the Mind - I
PS: ‘He’ and ‘him’ refer to both genders for the sake of simplicity.
baba... one needs to define his own happiness parameters ... it could be a quality of job as a parameter and other might have the in-hand he's able to grab... some have how many ppl they helped / affected in life... when ppl have more than 3-4 such parameters - the problem begins as most of these parameters are very contradictory to each other... getting to a balance is ideal - but then that is a compromise on all the fronts moreover its human nature to get that extra edge ... which he is compromising on - unbalancing the equation!
ReplyDeletetruth is there is no limit to desires... one achieved other comes up... sky is the limit... (some one actually said - of you can control your desires - you become mahatma)...
bottomline... stick to one or two parameters - work on it and be happy (easier said than done)... but i have seen many such ppl