True success is not something that is broadcast across television screens. It is not something meant to be announced over the radio. It is not getting your picture posted in a magazine or newspaper for all who cares to see. True success is quieter. It is a subtle hint of quality in your character. Everyone possesses the ability to attain it as well as the choice to disregard such opportunities. And opportunities of success are everywhere that you never seem to look. They present themselves and must be taken advantage of without the knowledge of what is being presented.

Many perceive success to be signified by wealth, awards or commendations. I will tell you differently. This view that countless people have adopted over the years is superficial and causes some to believe themselves superior while consequently making others feel inferior. There will never be a time where everyone will be considered equal but that does not mean it is okay to purposely heighten false expectations resulting in the degradation of others. Under no circumstances is it possible for a vastly dimensional topic such as success to be judged by the majority and labeled under false pretenses. Successful are those who are deemed thusly. The favorable outcome of your endeavors is only a part of being successful. Truly successful are those who require no title to note their achievements.

I have received honors and decorations, this is true, but I have been successful too.
Are they not one in the same?
No, they are not.

True success is found in how you live your life each day. A man is left with one thing when all else is taken from him. What he is left with is the last of his freedoms. This freedom is the ability to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances; the ability to choose one’s own way. When faced with challenges in life, what matters most is how they are dealt with, which is also the ultimate determination of true success. Just imagine that life is a deck of cards and everyone is dealt a hand. You have no influence over what cards you are given you simply have to make the most of what you have.

There was a boy once who was faced with a challenge so great that many older and stronger men and women, faced with challenges similar, were made to crumble. Giving up is easy, so they say. This boy displayed the power of determination and its ability, when used correctly, to overcome oppression it its many forms.
His story, well it started when he was in school, many years ago. There was a small country schoolhouse and it was very old-fashioned. Heating was different back then, achieved through the use of a pot-bellied coal stove. This little boy was well respected and responsible so he was charged with the responsibility of coming to school early each day in order to light a fire in the stove and thus warming the room before his teacher or any of his classmates arrived.
All was well for a time, however, one morning something went wrong, terribly wrong. The schoolhouse structure was aflame and this boy was found within. Taken to the hospital, the little boy was more dead than alive with horrible burns decorating the lower half of his body. The doctor in charge of his care spoke to the mother and said to her that her son would surely die. What was not expected was for the child to hear the doctor say these words and truth be told; this child had no wish to die.

Somehow, through a miracle, he cheated death and stayed alive. Thus his determination to live proved fruitful, but the story does not end here. It was said that this boy would never again be able to use his lower limbs as a result of the burns from the fire. Once again this brave boy made up his mind to not then nor ever be a cripple. There was no feeling in his legs but he still believed that he would one day be able to walk again.

One day when he was sitting outside in a wheelchair he got an idea. He threw his body out of the chair and dragged his resisting form over to the fence that ran around the perimeter of his family’s yard. He pulled himself up the fence and then little by little moved his body down the fence one stake at a time. He did this every day, wearing a path around the yard in the grass and dirt. Eventually he achieved his goal and was able to move his legs after which point in time he continued to strengthen his legs further each day. He stood then walked and eventually he ran. This boy was not expected to survive the damage from the fire, would have surely never walked and could have never hoped to run. This young boy grew to be Dr. Glenn Cunningham, a man who ran the world’s fastest mile.

This story is meant to show that true success was not running the world’s fastest mile, for which fame came in spades. The true success, a result of this young boy’s determination, came from proving the doctors and people around him wrong. His true success was simply standing up despite being told that it was likely an impossible feat. It was walking; it was running for the sheer joy of running. Running the world’s fastest mile came later and it was not his success but rather one of the results of his great success in life.

Success is not in any way instantaneous; sometimes it can take quite a while. You may not see your efforts come to fruition; you can only hope and have faith. With so many people in the world your actions may seem insignificant, and alone they are. However, once you reach out to another, your actions take on a whole other meaning. It is the basis for which pay it forward was founded; the domino effect, or so it may be considered.

The perfect example of this is when a man showed some kindness to a cab driver. It was in busy New York and two friends were riding in a cab together. When they got out one of the two men stopped and spoke to the driver, “Thanks for the ride today. Your driving was excellent.”

Upon hearing this, the driver was rather astonished and more than a little skeptical. Once he regained his composure he said, “Are you being smart or something?”

“Not at all, I am being completely serious. I happen to admire the work that you do.”

“Well, okay then,” the cab driver commented before finally driving off to look for his next fare.

The friend who had remained silent during the exchange finally found his voice and asked, “What was all of that for Mark?”

“Well, believe it or not but I am slowly attempting to bring a bit of love back to New York City,” the friend said.

“It is not possible for a single man to save New York.”

“Ah, but that is your problem Daniel. It will not be just me, not one man, no. I quite possibly just made that driver’s day. For the rest of the day he will be driving people around and because I was nice to him he might just be nice to the other people that he meets today. From there it will just keep spreading further and further, this one act of kindness that really took no time out of my day at all.”

“Okay, so your plan sounds good in theory,” Daniel admitted, “but rarely does something on paper work correctly in practice.”
“But the beauty is that nothing is lost if my plan does not work. Should my compliments remain unheard today then it simply means that I will have to try again and attempt to make someone else happy.”

The two friends continued with their day, one continuously attempting to enlist more and more people in his campaign to bring love back to the city of New York. Mark’s actions, while nothing more than a simple gesture of kindness to a stranger, hold the potential for so much more. His actions did not garner him instantaneous success but rather left him with the hope that they would lead to him being successful in the future, not through his actions alone but from the combined efforts of many.

True success is also wide-reaching and in not in any way yours alone. It is meant to be shared, meant to touch others in any way they may at that time need. The light you shine on others is reflected back onto you. Sometimes it is not in life that true success is achieved but rather in death. How is this possible? Simply by being remembered kindly is an example of just such an achievement and is in any case one worthy of the highest of praises. The quality of life that you led can at times be determined by the reactions of the people being left behind. Should you be kind then acquaintances are sad to see that you are gone. Likewise, if you are not known for being good or kind then there are few if any that truly are bothered to care about your passing. It is a success if you are remembered in a good light and it is a success if you are able to pass on some small piece of wisdom to the next generation before embarking on the next great adventure.

A true piece of wisdom passed on successfully is to always endeavor to see the beauty in the rain. It was passed on not during life but rather after the young man responsible for this small piece of wisdom had joined God in heaven. This boy’s name was Michael and in very little time he managed to touch the hearts of many.

It was a sad time for many, to see a life lost in one so young. This story starts at the end, at the funeral. There were many people in attendance, many people that were crying. Questions filled the minds of the masses yet answers seemed to have eluded all. For all were wondering why an accident had to happen that took a young boy away.

“How could God take Michael of all people away?” they asked desperately to one another. “He was so young and yet so kind, what could be deserving of such fate?”

Two parents stood among the rest. Neither able to understand, able to see any possible reason such a tragic accident had to take their son away from them. Classmates likewise wondered why they had to lose a friend.

In life, Michael was kind, much more so than many could ever have claimed to be. The reason I say this is that he always put himself in other people’s shoes. He was kind to the elderly fore he expected to age through life as well. He loved his parents deeply fore he hoped to one day have a family and children of his own. He valued every individual and offered cherished friendship to all because he knew that a day may come where he would need someone to be a friend to him.

While Michael was successful through his kind-hearted actions and way of looking at life, his ultimate success actually came later. It happened when the pastor from Michael’s church stood to speak. He wanted to bring comfort to everyone there for it seemed that God was putting their faith to the test and he was searching Michael’s bible for the right words to read. As he was looking a paper slipped out from between the pages. The pastor picked it up and read what the paper said, silently to his self at first, and then he addressed the mournful gathering of family and friends.

“Between the pages of Michael’s bible I have found a note that Michael wrote in his own hand before he passed away,” he claimed somberly. The pastor’s countenance while serious was yet more confident than moments before. He continued his address and Michael’s own words filled the air. When he was done everyone in attendance was humbled by Michael’s words and the lesson spoken therein.

Michael had written about how he often wondered why people had to know pain. It is as if he is speaking to God himself in the writing of this note and he questions why when people so dearly need a bit of sunshine, he so often sends them the rain. As the words continue on, in the note there is a proclamation of Michael’s realization that everyone is given a life and it is up to them how they live it. God is not the one to be blamed for everyone’s sorrows and everyone’s pain. It is better by far to stop always hoping for sunshine when it is possible to simply start seeing the beauty of the rain.

The true success of Michael’s life can be found in the passing of this wisdom. It spread far and reached many people. It reflected the views that directed the way he lived his life each day. Success is not meant to be exclaimed but neither is it to be kept harbored away by any one individual, because that is not success at all. It is hoped that people will listen to Michael’s words and act upon the lesson taught. When people start seeing the beauty in rain, then that will be the true testament to Michael’s achievements.

Another lesson is that true success stems from happiness. It is important to remember that happiness is in no way dependent on who you are or upon what you possess. In reality, it depends exclusively upon how you think. You can have nothing at all and yet still consider yourself to have plenty. Sometimes it is easier to understand how little significance there is to material possessions when coming into contact with someone who has less than yourself and yet is still happy.

Once there was a rather average family. They were neither very rich nor were they by any means poor. They lived in a house that was relatively small and country styled. It was during dinner one night that this story begins. The family was sitting down to consume their evening meal when a knock sounded from the front door. The dad went and opened the door.

Standing upon the front porch to their cozy little home was an older gentleman wearing ragged clothing that was missing some of the buttons and simply coming apart at the seams. In his arms the man was carrying a basket that was filled with vegetables freshly harvested. He spoke kindly to the family, asking them if they had any desire to purchase the vegetables from him. The family agreed.

Time passed and the old man continued to visit their home once a week with vegetables to sell. The family and the gentlemen gradually got to know one another and became friends. The older gentleman was so kind and friendly that the family began to look forward to each of his visits, happy to have his company.

One day when the old man visited the family he was very happy. While he was delivering the vegetables, he said, “I just had an amazing blessing the other day! Left outside of my house was a basket of clothes that someone decided to give to me.”

The family knew that the man needed clothes very much and said, “That’s great!”

The elderly gentleman smiled at that and said, “The best part of all though is that I was able to find a family that really needed the clothes.”

The man from this story is very generous and kind, often attempting to look after others even before thinking about himself. He has very little in way of material possessions it would seem; however, he is to all appearances more than content with his lot in life. Making other people happy appears to be one of the things that make him happy. It is true that some people make the choice to live simply and others are born into lives of deprivation. For cases of the latter the best advice to be given is to remember that there will always be someone that is living in better circumstances than you just as there will always be someone who is surviving under substandard conditions that are worse off than yours as well. Rather than asking for things believing that with them you might enjoy life more, think about how you are given life so that you might then be able to enjoy all things.

With all of these thoughts on success I started thinking, who is it that I picture in my mind when I try to think of someone that is successful. Not the people with fame and titles; none of that is representative of true success from my viewpoint. Once I realized this I started to think along the lines of smaller and less acknowledged. If success has to do with happiness then I think I might just picture a baby. If you think about it, what do people normally do when they see a baby? They smile. Why is it that we always tend to smile when we see a baby? Maybe it is because we are looking at someone that does not possess all the defensive layers that are learned and created as you grow, someone whose smile for us we will always know to be completely genuine and without guile. In this way babies are truly successful, because they can make us smile.

To be truly successful in life is to live your life as happily as conceivably possible. True success is about making the right choices and doing everything imaginable to avoid the wrong choices, it is making positive contributions to the world surrounding you, and it is choosing things to value that are truly important, among which are foremost friends and family. The old have a duty and that duty is to teach the young. Too often they tend to teach the wrong things though and while I am not old by any stretch of the imagination, I feel as though it would be remiss of me if I were to not pass along this view of success. So here I tell you once again, true success is found in the way you walk the paths of life each day, what you do and what you say. Leave the fame for those adorned with pride, and attempt to refrain from seeking goals that all men are hopeful they might one day claim for themselves.