(The Beatles - Ringo, George, John and Paul) Source
There has never been a more successful band in music history than The Beatles – who burst onto the world stage with their first album in 1963.
They broke record after record in the music industry. The public adored them. Women would scream and literally faint at the mere sight of them.
Yet, for all their glory and public adoration – they were unhappy.
They had achieved success beyond their wildest dreams, yet it just wasn’t enough. Something was missing. More money, material possessions and fame was not the answer.
But The Beatles were far from the only ones who had tasted extraordinary success and found it unsatisfying.
The most successful Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps, won a staggering 28 Olympic medals—23 of them gold. Yet, despite all the medals and accolades, Phelps struggled with depression and even seriously contemplated suicide.
We, humans, are obsessed with success. We live in a society that conditions us to view attaining success as the ultimate goal of life. It tells us to care about achieving success because it will give us what we truly want – to be happy and fulfilled.
But if history teaches one thing, it is that, attaining success never guarantees anything, least of all fulfilment and happiness.
The definition of being successful in our society typically centres on having wealth, material possessions, social status and being a high achiever.
But money can’t buy peace of mind or happiness, and neither can all the material possessions in the world – well, at least not in the long run.
One of the many myths propagated by our society is that achieving external glory and success translates to a lasting and fulfilling inner experience. But reality, as you can see from the examples of The Beatles and Michael Phelps is quite different.
Am I saying that being successful is a bad thing? Of course not. But don’t make attaining success your life’s goal or expect it will make you happy and magically solve your problems.
Now don’t take my word for it. Read about the lives of numerous others who have achieved extraordinary success and ultimately discovered – there’s more to life than this.
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