“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”
– Bob Dylan

“There is only one success: To be able to live your life in your own way.”
– Christopher Morley

In truth, when one seeks an external form of success, what a person truly seeks is its essence such as happiness, peace of mind, a sense of fulfillment, and so on. What is success without any of these anyway?

Think about it. If one seeks to earn a million dollars, is it the money or the security that is sought? Is it the monetary value or the peace of mind? Is it the cash or the comfort? People do not seek to achieve goals but to achieve the essence of their goals. It’s not results, material possessions, or accomplishments but the value people attach to them that are aimed for.

Is happiness this thing far out there that dangles in front of you like an elusive carrot? Is your thinking such that happiness only occurs when you’ve reached a certain goal? Should you feel fulfilled only after you’ve achieved a certain level? Obviously, if success is the reason for your happiness and not the other way around, then there’s a change in your thinking that must take place.

If goals, for instance, represent an inner yearning for happiness and peace, and if you are expressing it through your desire to achieve your goals, you are in fact ignoring that which you already have. A fulfilled goal will never give you a sense of fulfillment. Never. Remember that it is only a symbol of your potential’s expression and it is not the real thing. A sense of purpose comes from within while goals are merely tools to help you remain on purpose, to remind you of that which you already are in truth. They should be guides, not goals.

A goal is not an end but a process. I’m not saying that goals, success, or the trappings of success are dishonorable or wrong. It’s your feelings about your goals or your attachment to them that are wrong. To know if this is you, ask yourself: “Am I addicted to symbols of success? Do I feel that I’m not prosperous unless I’ve accumulated ‘X’ amount of money?”

In Buddhism, they say that the cause of all suffering is attachment, and I feel that the path to true success is detachment or freedom from attachment. In other words, success doesn’t come from that which you crave.

It’s OK to desire or to want. It’s OK to achieve and acquire that which represents success to you. What’s wrong, though, is to turn those wants into needs or to let your cravings become crutches.

You can recognize the same metaphysical meaning when you study one of the Ten Commandments, which says: “Thou shall not worship any other Gods besides the Lord thy God.” Jesus himself said that you can not worship two masters. “If you worship money, you can not worship God.” If you worship that which you desire rather than who you really are, the spirit of God within you, you will truly be living a life of hell. You will live a life of unhappiness and slavery because you are giving your power and control to something outside of you.

I’m sure you’ve heard that “money is the root of all evil.” Money is not the root of all evil but the love of money is. If you want to reach a goal as in making a lot of money, buying the latest sports car, or taking a luxurious cruise, that’s wonderful. The universe is abundant and it is your right to acquire all that you can. But if you attempt to reach a goal out of a yearning to feel a certain way, or in other words if your happiness always lives in the future, then your success will always be a step ahead of you. You will never feel fulfilled no matter what.

True success is not about reaching goals. It’s about being. And this is where most people become frustrated since goals can become extraordinarily deceptive, not to mention addictive.

The ability you have to manifest the successfulness that lies within you is what will bring that sense of fulfillment to your life, and it is not so much what you do or have but who you are right now. This ability to connect with the highest that’s within you is your true success, and ability is more of a choice than it is an actual skill or competency.

Your full potential can never become a reality because you wouldn’t be able to deal with its infiniteness. You can only tap into it. You are today what your potential was yesterday, and so on. Since the essence of your being is beyond space and time, your source of happiness and fulfillment are thus available to you right here and now. You don’t have to search for it or wait for it to happen. The source is within you.

Here’s an old Hindu story. I may be paraphrasing it a little bit because I don’t remember it exactly. But its message is truly appropriate at this point.

Shortly after the beginning of man, the gods were debating on where to hide man’s divine essence in order to prevent him from ever discovering who he really is (either out of jealousy or fear of mutiny, I suppose). So one day, the deities conferred with Brahma, the godhead, and said, “We should hide it at the peak of the highest mountains.” Brahma answered, “No, for man will eventually go there and find it.”

“Let’s hide it deep inside the darkest forests,” another suggested, “or how about the lowest depths of the ocean? Surely, man will never go there,” another one added. “No,” Brahma retorted, “man will eventually find it there also.” Perplexed, the gods asked Brahma, “Where, then?” “We shall hide it where man will never think of looking for it,” Brahma replied. “We will hide it deep within their own selves.”

So, you don’t need to seek success and happiness for they were never outside of you in the first place. You can not find that which you already have. But if you truly want to be happy, if you truly want to be successful, then stop looking for symbols to make you feel successful and start bringing your substance, your inner you, your Godforce, into expression. Stop searching and start knowing.

About the Author

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker, consultant, and CEO of The Success Doctor, Inc. Visit his blog and signup free to get tested conversion strategies and response-boosting tips by email, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.michelfortin.com.

Last 5 Posts by Michel Fortin

• Feel Like Giving Up? Go Out On a Limb… Or None
• This Eye-Opening Video is, Well, Golden!
• Review of Robert Plank’s SpeedCopySecrets.com
• This Little Tool Quadrupled My Signups
• Computer Geek Discovers Speed Copy Secrets?

Share This Post

Share this post with a friend by clicking "share this" below. You may freely reprint or redistribute this article, provided the content and links are left intact, and the "about the author" section is included. Get notified of new posts by RSS or email, below.

Other Related Posts

• Your Values (0)
• Luck and Motivation (0)
• Thou Shall Make The Ordinary Extraordinary (0)
• The Right To Be Rich (0)
• The Inner You (0)