Success

I have to ask myself, “how do I measure success?”  Well I really do not have to, but I do.
Some people have said things about success I really like.  Michael Jordan said, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”  I like that.  I am well acquainted with failure, but I am also acquainted with success born of failure.  Failure is endemic, but success always beckons.  Reminds me of what Churchill said, “…failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
I particularly like something Einstein said. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”  That statement addresses what I have been considering.
There are those who by our measure are successful.  They are rich.  They have made wise financial choices.  Yet I ask myself, are they really successful?  I can think of businessmen and politicians at home and abroad who are deemed to be successful, but I do not want success as they know it.  Being rich is good, but I don’t know that it is good to be rich at the expense of others.
I will never begrudge someone being successful through their own efforts and providing something for others.  I do begrudge someone knowing success at the expense of others.
Many years ago (last century in fact) I talked to my boss about the black irrigation system.  I said the person that patented that process would have gotten rich on the royalties.  My boss said rightly so.  I agree.  The need of many was provided for, and people were not ripped off in the process.
I contrast that with what happened during the war.  Prisoners of war were used as guinea pigs for the testing of drugs.  Sure, good came of it, but I ask myself at what price?  What may have been good for us was horrific for those who were experimented on when the drug was a failure and produced unwanted side effects.
Others have conducted campaigns regarded as “successful.”   Yet they cost millions of lives to achieve an aim that was only designed to satisfy a minimum of people.  In that case, human life is seen to be cheap.  In my mind it never is.
I was reading about Ethiopia and how they were let down by powers who had said they would come to their rescue.  The campaign against them was “successful,” but cost a great many innocent Ethiopian lives.
While I find all of this useful it still begs the question, “how do I measure success?”  I am sure there are other valid reasons but success to me is very much how Einstein described it.  If I can provide for the needs of others without ripping them off, or it costing them their lives unnecessarily, I think of it as a success.  I may grow rich from it or I may not.  To me wealth does not give me legitimacy, but wealth obtained justly does.
I want my success to last more than my lifetime here on this planet – to be lasting rather than fleeting.
Pro 2:7