2 posts tagged “success”
"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."
from Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Late last night I wrote that I need to have a vision for my life. In the next 8 hours, two very interesting things happened.
I had a dream I was in a coffee shop, about to have a job interview. I had a good nervous energy about myself...ready to go but with no idea of what was going to happen. I didn't even know who I was going to interview with, so I was looking around, trying to keep cool and look open.
A very friendly man came up and introduced himself, shaking my hand. With him was a woman who I worked for years ago (in the dream world; now awake, I don't know who she was). We found a table, got some coffees, and sat down to talk.
They explained the position to me. They were building a web application and having no end of trouble. Employees were working 18-hour days and having trouble getting along. Some were very talented and some were very troublesome. Some didn't know what they were doing.
I was very confused, trying to figure out what position they were offering me. I was trying to get them to say: "We're giving you a free hand--come in and fix this!" But it sounded like they were just trying to bring me into the mess. When I told them I was enjoying my current job and that the benefits are awesome (they are), I got very interesting reactions. The friendly guy got nervous and shifty, and the woman was looking very pathetic, staring at me with sad, pleading eyes.
I sat there intensely wanting to take the job, because I wanted them to like me, and I wanted to rescue them.
That was the end of the dream. When I woke up, I went downstairs and saw a book on the bookshelf, picked it up, and opened to a random page.
The book was Over the Top by Zig Ziglar. I opened to the first page of a chapter called A goals program: the key to a balanced success. Zig Ziglar compares life to a buffet. All the food is there, and you may like all of it, but you can't eat all of it. At one time in his life, he made a list of all the things he would like to accomplish: everything from being a good neighbor to having a radio show to learning Spanish. Here's what he says:
"I tried to evaluate how much time would be required each week to do all of these things, and counting 7 hours of sleep per night, it came to a total of over 300 hours a week. Since there are only 168 hours in the week, I realized something very significant: I had to eliminate much of the good so I could choose the best, just as I did in the cafeteria line."
