In today’s world, many celebrities and leaders who have made it big, have succumbed to various forms of intoxication. Why? How can we vaccinate ourselves against this?
Many celebrities have succumbed to various forms of intoxication because they could not handle the magnitude of their success. Few fall to rise. Many rise to fall.
‘What you become’ means nothing if it comes at the cost of ‘Who you are’. There are good people and there are successful people. But great are those who remain good even after becoming successful.
There is a lesson to learn from them. Let success not make your heart into a bitter heart. The higher you go, if you fall, the deeper the fall will be. Beware…
Success should never feed your ego but must always feed your sense of responsibility. Success is not a status. It is a responsibility. Your next promotion is not a status. It only means you are responsible for the success of a lot more people in your team. Being made the captain of an Indian cricket team only means that you are now responsible for the aspirations and sentiments of a billion people. Becoming the Prime Minister only means that you are now responsible for the future of a nation. Being elected as the President of a social organisation only means that it is your responsibility to ensure that the resources at your disposal will serve the right social needs during your tenure. With every rung you scale on the ladder of success, you are also scaling rungs on the ladder of responsibility. Aspiring to be successful, in essence, is aspiring to be more responsible.
Understand that every man is a product of a huge investment. From God, to parents, to teachers, to society, to mentors, to colleagues, to all men who left a trail behind for us to follow, to people whose names and forms we may never know – everybody plays a part in the making of every man. Nobody makes it alone. In truth, nobody is self-made. All of us are made by others. The success we produce is just our way of justifying the investments that have been made on us. We are mere instruments of success. Success, per se, is a collective force. It just culminates through a few individuals. This time it could be you; next time it could be her…
Success can never burden or corrupt those who see themselves as an instrument of a higher force… In fact, it will make them more responsible to lift everybody around them.
