SUCCESSFULLY HAPPY

Society defines success in terms of winning awards, excelling at school/university/sports/games, climbing the career ladder fast, earning a lot of money, having many acquaintances and being known by many or even better: to become famous. And the majority of people are following this creed because they are believing that to be successful would bring them a kind of lasting happiness. But, of course, this is not true because outward success is transitory due to the law of continual change. Therefore, to believe in worldly success and to make it your aim of existence simultaneously engenders fear and feeds the already existing fear in your being because deep down you instinctively know that your success does not last forever. All the same, there are some who walk through life apparently always being successful. And yet, by the latest when their time of death is coming close, they will be forced to realize that true happiness is an expression of the heart and can only be gained inwardly. And if you look at the eyes of so-called "successful and happy" people you know that their happiness is only superficial and does not touch their hearts because their gaze is bleakly empty and their smiles look like dead masks.
So the equation is not: success equal happiness but actually the other way round: to be happy is to be successful in life. Because to keep your happiness alive and to feel and express it throughout the ups and downs of your personal existence does not come easy and has to be learned and mastered. True happiness is an inner state of being, a matter of the heart and is not related to outward circumstances. It puts a light to your eyes, which is giving a radiance to your smiles.