This week, a famous youtuber turned entrepreneur published a video on why she left --- she left everything behind to seek solace and healing in Nature. For someone who has reached her level of success, the public might have expected her to either be enjoying her success or riding on her current success to become even more successful (whatever that may mean). Instead, she left (for now, at least).
In her video, she revealed that she felt depressed and alone, despite her "success". Her "success" kept her very busy...until that was the only thing she knew. And she kept selling, selling and selling. She has fame and money but she felt she has "lost" herself in the course of it.
And it got me pondering about success.
As a young child, I watched a Japanese animation film that shared the same name as Paulo Coelho's famous book, The Alchemist. A message in that film stuck to me till this day: "If you want something, you have to bring something of an equal value to exchange for it."
Since then, I've been careful about my choices lest I trade off something precious to me that I would only realise too late. Trade-offs are rarely about trading the bad for the good. Often it's about choosing from options that are seemingly equally bad or equally good. That's why making good trade-offs is so difficult.
It requires higher consciousness (yes, I can't stress it enough).
The ability to make good trade-offs require that you know yourself - know what you can't live without and what you can put up with (in the case of two equally bad options). Only then would you be able to discern what you should pursue and what are just temptations or trials to distract you from your true desired path and then shoo them away when they turn up at your door, however enticing they may be.
Because if anything's fair in Life, it is time - we are all given 24 hours a day. What you choose to do during these 24 hours will determine how fulfilled and happy you are with your days. If you choose the dispensables over the essentials, you will find yourself feeling anything but happy.
Choose a Life that allows you to build on a few essentials, not one that is maintained by the numerous dispensables.
Choose a Life that feels good inside, not one that looks good on the outside.
Choose a Life that is authentic to you, not one that is approved by others.
"Success is liking who you are, what you do,
and how you do it." - Maya Angelou
