Success is What Everyone Else Has

Success is irrelevant

By Gabriel Matias Castilho

Over time I have pondered about what the meaning of “success” really was for me. I internalized onto others what success meant, seeing my friends and other people as role models and collapsed under agony when I was not capable of reaching my desired state of wealth (the psychic variety of wealth, of course). In short, I defined success as what everyone else but I had. Every once in a while when I bring this “success” to anyone, I am reminded just how toxic this mindset is. I am aware, after all, this could be my fatal flaw.

But this is what the city does to someone, I believe. My whole life I have lived in big cities, where everyone around you is doing something that you would love to do, and all you can do is know about it, being incapable of doing the same thing in the same way yourself. It is not as if university life is any different (if anything, it’s worse). As a first generation student, watching everyone around you so easily embody their careers makes you rethink your whole life—“If I am a journalist, why the hell do I want to make music and write stories in a magazine?”

Success became having a purpose, and blurring this line that connects the “you” to the “your purpose” indicated a clear digression from “what you were meant to achieve.” But if being successful is to embody an idea that is heavily appraised by society and academia, then you are the clown who is losing your entire life to live someone else’s. Create your own path, live your own passions, and don’t let the imposed feeling of “you have to be this” overpower you. Success is irrelevant.