Journey vs. Destination

Whenever we think about success, we think of it as a light at the end of a dark tunnel, a destination at the end of a treacherous road, an outcome of the long-drawn-out process. Not only do we fail to appreciate the beauty of the path we are walking on in anticipation of a destination, we sometimes are willing to tread on the most horrible path just because we think the end would more than make up for it. The result is that our happiness is always conditional: I will be happy after I get this job, after I buy this car, earn this much amount of money, find the perfect life partner, etc. Our present becomes a victim of our envisioned future.

There are some inherent dangers involved in waiting for success. First, the success one has envisioned for himself may never come. In The Black Swan, a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author beautifully explains that success is quite random. Which book will become a bestseller, which experiment will work, which startup will succeed etc. depends on many factors, many of which are random. In essence, there is no clear recipe for success. Second, waiting for success in the future may ruin our present if all we think about is what will happen in the future and don't pay attention to what is in front of us.

So, what should you do?

1. Define success using your own parameters. Make sure the goal you have set for yourself is what you really want to achieve. It should not be decided by your parents, your peers, the society around you, etc. You can obviously take their help, but the final decision should be yours. If the goal is not yours but you are still trying to achieve it, your life would be miserable in the long run even if you get certain short term benefits.
2. Enjoy what you do on a day-to-day basis. Thinking about your life after you have achieved a certain goal may give us some solace, but the real happiness lies in accepting and enjoying what you do in the present. In fact, in order to reach the pinnacle of your career, say after 50 years, you must be willing to accept the ups and downs that would come with it. The path has to be as enjoyable as our imagined destination, if not more. Enjoyable does not mean easy and without challenges. If you want to win a gold medal in the Olympics, you will have to work hard. Some days would be better than others, but what matters is you are not making your happiness conditional on some future event.
3. Finally, make sure you never stop trying, even if you face multiple failures. We should never stop honing our craft. Whether we will succeed or not depends on a lot of factors many of which are not under our control, but we can surely enjoy the process, the path. And once we start enjoying the process, the final product does not really matter.

In fact, all these suggestions have already been summarized beautifully by the great sages of the past:

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन (You have every right to work but not expecting fruits out of it.)