Success comes from within...

"To really succeed, one must let go of many preconceptions and be open minded, whilst keeping ones integrity without being stubborn." ~ (Me, 2012)

Succeed, success, successful... three words that many people strive for, in various different ways and forms. What do these words mean to me?

Competition is never a bad thing, in fact I thrive on it; however there's healthy competition and bad forms of it.

You spend your life comparing yourself to other people... is it entirely beneficial?

The best form of competition, and possibly the hardest is when one competes with oneself. How does one do it? In what way should one face these challenges and think upon it?

Success (and all its derivatives) comes from self improvement. Critiquing, evaluating, and solving problems, finding solutions to improve oneself. It's an eternal journey of infinite phases of ups and downs. But the strongest survive.

I, for one continuously, without fail, reflect upon my beliefs, my thoughts, my actions. What's more, I evaluate others too; because one individual can only experience and learn so much. I put myself in others' shoes, learning from their experiences, critiquing their performance impartially as someone else would do to me. I learn, I improve, I achieve.

I think there's numerous downfalls in the human character... by this I mean certain traits and emotions human beings, or at least the majority of them, are prone to.

Close-mindedness, stubbornness, ignorance and jealousy.

I'm sure you all know what those are, so without further ado, I'll just briefly summarise my thoughts on these.

Each one of us have our background, experiences, memories, culture, languages and even religious beliefs or morals and values that have come as a package with our upbringing. These preconceptions and views are all very well as they form part of our integrity. However, when one becomes ignorant to other peoples' (I'll stick to 'people' as a generic term, replaceable with other issues such as culture groups etc.) 'preconceptions' and does so close-mindedly and stubbornly, it becomes restricting for ones own maturing and development... and perhaps hindering success.

It's all very well being more successful than someone else, but is it the best you could possibly do? Did you really do your best? Or are you too in denial, too proud, or ignorant to begin contemplating on your own faults?

My parents will always remind me not to ever become 'the frog in the well'. They want me to keep in mind and hopefully realise one day that reality is much bigger than what I already know. To never become tunnel-visioned or tunnel-minded; to accept, acknowledge and understand other concepts. And with that, is to never take action on something you do not fully understand as it just shows ignorance and disrespect.

So whilst I keep my integrity and stand strongly by my beliefs, I never stubbornly do so. I keep my mind open and should one day I realise that my beliefs, or preconceptions, (the way I was brought up, my culture, and so on) were wrong, or not adept, adequate or suitable for the changing times, I will be ready to reflect and change for the better.

Following from that, whilst one should be preoccupied with self-improvement, the issue of jealousy becomes prevalent; it's very easy to fall down the bottomless pit of envy, jealousy and self-pitying and depression.

I don't have much to say on jealousy, as I don't personally feel jealousy... I strongly believe we all exist for some reason, and even there wasn't a reason, we are here to create our own reason to live. No one is perfect so I do not see why one should be jealous. There are  a lot of things we cannot see or understand from the surface so even when you look at someone who's shining brightly from happiness, it may be that they have suffered in the past or even is still suffering. We are all given gifts and are blessed in many different ways, sadly, not many people are grateful nor appreciating of these or don't even realise!

I believe in karma... and I have good reason to, which I will not explain here.

But I encourage you all to reflect on the blessings you have given, the love you have received, and the actions you have done. Did you repay your blessings with good deeds? What more can you do to improve yourself, and develop into a better person?

Your greatest enemy is yourself

That way you will succeed, not only winning against others but winning against yourself each and every time you achieve success. Thus, becoming successful.

Look beyond the sky you can see from inside the well (*^^*)