(Ulrich, 100 year old Bulgarian man): in Solo, by Rana Dasgupta"Ulrich has sometimes wondered whether his life has been a failure. Once he would have looked at all this and said yes. But now he does not know what it means for a life to succeed or fail. How can a dog fail its life, or a tree? A life is just a quantity; and he can no more see failure in it than he can see failure in a pile of earth, or a bucket of water. Failure and success are foreign terms to such blind matter." (p. 160)

I would hesitate to use the word 'success' in the way many people do. I don't know that I would apply it to what I've done as though I have now reached the ultimate goal. To me success is a continuing thing. It is growth and development. It is achieving one thing and using that as a stepping stone to achieve something else. Success comes as you have confidence in yourself. Self-confidence is built by succeeding, even if the success is small. It is the believing that makes it possible.

I think about the pepper plant, the corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more plants. And I've noticed that while those seeds are living within the fruit or vegetable they can not grow. It is only when those seeds have died, that they can be planted and grow. And, I can relate this same process to the human body. In order to grow and thrive in the spirit, you must die to the flesh. Meaning, You have to rid your mind and body of toxic negative worldly things in order to grow and develop more spiritually.

Status is a funny thing. Money gets you stuff, at least. Status doesn't get you much except the knowledge that you have it. And while money may not make you happy, it is easy to imagine someone who decides they have enough. With status, you can never have enough. It is comparative and competitive, by its very nature. It doesn't just not make you happy: it actively makes you unhappy. You want to make it to the top? There is no top. However high you climb, there is always somebody above you.

The problem for a lot of people is that they don't really know what they want. They have vague desire: to 'do something creative' or to earn more money or 'to be free', but they can't really pin down what it is precisely that they want. So they drift from one thing to another, enjoying some moments and hating others, but never really finding fulfillment or success. (..)This is why it's hard to lead a successful life (whatever that means to you) when you don't know what you want.

Let the old year be gone and with it your old habit of getting in your own way! This is your year! It will reveal itself to you one day at a time. In each day you will have countless opportunities to have your actions reflect your goals. Don't throw away another day/another year. Make each day count! If you see something different for yourself in the future, you have to do something different for yourself in the present. Let today be the day you interrupt your thoughts of "I should" with your actions of DOING!

I don't define success by how much money someone makes. I don't define success by how many trophies or plaques or awards someone has.I don't define it by membership in exclusive clubs or the ability to name-drop about someone's famous friends.I don't define it by how many luxury cars or opulent homes someone might own or how many sumptuous vacations they might taken in exotic locales all over the globe.I don't define success...oh, hell, I'm just kidding. Actually, all that stuff is fantastic!

Uncommon success is found on the spiritual plane; you can't get there through common convention or following others. Hard work is not enough; many work slavishly-hard for little reward. Intelligence is insufficient; how many educated and brilliant people there are who fail utterly and completely. Goodness is not enough; how many meek and good souls are tilled into the earth like manure by demigods to fertilize their golden crops. There is something more — it is the unseen essential, and everyone has access to it.

If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors' prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities - and not the communities simply of our human neighbors but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.(pg. 59, "Racism and the Economy")

At any given point you can release your greatest self. Don’t let anyone hold you back. Don’t let anyone dilute you. Don’t be peer pressured into being less than you are. People willing to dilute themselves for the sake of others is one of the great tragedies of our time. Stop letting others define and set the pace for your life. Get out there and be your best. Do your best. Live your best. Make every day count and you’ll see how exponentially more exciting, thrilling, successful, happy and full your life will be.

Despite our human intelligence, we are very much like our friends in the wild; the world we live in is a survival of the fittest. But to this I say, let the fittest survive! Survival is overrated. We’re alive; we die. How long we survive for is of little significance. Our true significance lies not in the endless comparing of ourselves to one another, trying to see who is the fittest, using scales of evaluation and meaning that differ in the heart and mind of every individual; no - it lies in our deeds alone with the time we have.

And Newton's Third Law may've contained more truth than we realized. But I mean that from a spiritual perspective though. I don't believe we can have a major gain (success/triumph) without experiencing the exact opposite (loss/failure) of equal intensity. God won't work like that. That's why some things can be easily attributed to fate. I just embraced the mistakes. It's almost as if the harder the fall the higher the bounce. And that's always been the case. Don't fret. The present and future are before us.

Obituaries are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives. I defy you to find a single obituary that begins, "Jane Doe won the Nobel Prize in large part because she was admitted to a prestigious, highly selective preschool. After that, everything just kind of fell into place." Instead, you will read about dead ends, lucky coincidences, quirky habits, excessive self-confidence (often interspersed with bursts of excessive self-doubt), and a lot of passion for something.

مرد برای شکست خلق نشده، ممکن است نابود شود اما هیچ وقت شکست نمیخورد. یک مرد خیچ وقت عاجز هم نمی شود

Among the greatest tragedies is a person who believes that they aren't meant to win--by winning I mean find their purpose, passion and joy in life.They believe that other people have better DNA or happiness genes or something, but that they themselves are missing a critical chromosome.This is a lie and it is begging to be un-believed.For the moment we know the truth about ourselves, we can take both responsibility for our own lives and inspired action to create exactly the life which is our birthright.In other words, you were meant to win. You were created for joy.