Stephen Burrell

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Success vs. Happiness

Image c/o Haiku Deck

I have always believed that success will not make you happy if you were not happy before becoming successful. I have never tied my self worth together with my accomplishments. There are many people who believe that happiness is over the next mountain and as long as they conquer that next thing or achieve that next milestone - then, that’s going to bring them happiness. In reality, if you are not happy before success, you will not be happy after achieving success.


I think happiness comes not from those big moments that you anticipate, but in the little joys of life, for example, the pleasure of walking in the park and observing the colours of the leaves; the joy of creating a morning smoothie, etc. Happiness comes from the the small moments, not from the big accomplishments, regardless of what it looks like from the outside.


In my opinion, happiness and success are two different things. Success is based on what I’ve achieved and happiness is based on what I feel about myself and about how I feel about what I am doing. Whenever I attempt to interconnect them, I remind myself that happiness and success give a separate sense of meaning and fulfilment.