Thank you for joining me in this second edition of Sunday Pause. I hope your week has been fantastic!
If you are like me, probably you have wondered if you should pursue fulfillment over success.
So before we dive in some toughs about that, let’s first talk about the differences between those.
Success
Success is accomplishment, getting things, achieving goals, getting the good grade, achieving a certain amount of money, getting that position in the company, etc.
Most of us default to success.
However,
Let me ask you this.
To achieve this success, we have to sacrifice happiness in the present moment, time with friends, family, and loved ones, health, and we compromise other areas of our life, in the hope that success… will bring us happiness.
Isn’t it ironic? We sacrifice what we want in order to get what we want (Happiness).
So if we remove the success of that equation what are we left with? Happiness?
It’s a good tough experiment.
I am not saying you should not pursue success or your ambitions. What I am saying is that maybe you should have a clear vision of what is it that you really want, so that you do not arrive at your goal and realize that you don’t even wanted this. It was just glamour that you created over that thing.
Here are a few questions that could ask yourself to help have a clearer vision:
What activities bring you happy and joy?
If you didn’t need to work for money, in an imaginary world, what would you do?
Imagine yourself in the position of having what you want. Are you doing the activities that you want to do? Or is it the glamour, prestige, and other people’s approval that you wanted? Are there any other ways to feel the same way, right now in this moment?
Those are not easy questions, especially with our ego and belief systems getting in the way, let’s not assume they are, but can bring lots of interesting answers and changes.
“The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself.”
Let’s see how fulfillment is different.
Fulfillment
Fulfillment is all about the present moment, relationships, and impact on other people, it’s not focused on what we have or what we do, it’s focused on what we are. We don’t need to have or do, we can just be.
In fulfillment, there is no need to sacrifice our happiness to pursue success, why would we? When we can experience happiness right now in the present moment? In fulfillment happiness is the nature of the human being, there are no requirements for it, it’s always there, even when we are not aware of it. Why does there need to be a requirement for happiness?
What are the blocks to us experiencing it right now? Can we let go of them?
Fulfillment sometimes can seem so opposite side to success that I often wonder if it’s possible to have both.
How can we create a balance between success and fulfillment?
Balance
There seem to be people in the world who seem to have “success” and also feel fulfilled inside.
How can we replicate that?
What all of them have in common, is that often what we see as their success, is their mean to a broader purpose, unrelated to money or material success.
They are more focused on the quality of the impact that what they do have on the world and other people. And they don’t compromise their relationships, values, and other areas of life.
Conclusion
I can’t describe an equation to balance success and fulfillment. It can vary from person to person. What I can advise is that you keep experimenting and keep questioning yourself so that you get closer to your truth.
Hope you find something of value in this edition of Sunday Pause, and hope you have a lovely upcoming week!
Until next Sunday. 👋
– Idris Moura.
