In this lifetime you don't need to prove anything to anybody, except yourself .....
IMO, meaningful success, is self-defined. The winner of a marathon is greeted to loud cheers and congratulations, as well is the final runner to finish. I was/am always intrigued by that. Certainly the winner has achieved success through hard work, training, pain, set backs etc. But why do we cheer the final runner?
I think because, in many ways, the last runner has achieved the same success through hard work, training, pain, set backs etc. and on some level more since he/she knows he/she would not win, but rather set out for no other reason but for the personal glory of setting a high goal and doing it.
My favorite passage by Teddy Roosevelt
The Man in the Arena
It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst,
if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Success is elusive and fleeting. Enjoy the triumphs and may your losses be while daring greatly.
