Success Success, in the dictionary, is defined as “the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted.” Therefore, success cannot be judged by anyone other than oneself. It is a personal thing. It is the realization of goals, desires, or plans made by one's self. It is not measurable and yet it is something we always use to compare others or appraise someone’s worth. Success, in one form or another, is something that we will always be striving for. Success is also defined as living well and living a stress free life. There are three levels of living well and succeeding in life: societal success, personal success, and academic or professional success. Everybody comes from a society that expects us to live as per their goals as we also work towards achieving our personal goals. The natural tendencies humans possess have a lot to do with the societal success. We have achieved societal success, typically, if we have met the right person, lived happily, started a family and raised our children well. Having good friends would also be associated with societal success. A part of societal success is also to learn to treat people well, to treat other people as we would wish them to treat us as per the “golden rule.” We need to fill these goals that the society has for us and attempt to achieve societal success in order to fill our need to belong to society and fit in as an everyday, functioning member of society. We also realize the personal goals and dreams that we set in this pursuit of conformity. Achieving this civic success is only a small part of our venture to living well. Personal success is being able to spend one’s life in one’s own way and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it. Realization of one’s life gifting, strengths and weakness will help one succeed by not letting others look down upon him/her. A person who is not a good orator will not feel out of place when in a crowd of people deliberating on issues and he contributes few ideas but he needs to be happy that he is there and his presence is highly recognized. People are gifted differently, there are those people who talk much and other people listen much and that’s one way that the nature has been balanced. We cannot all be talkative; this will make the World a very noisy and an inhabitable place. Personal success has to do with being happy. One can only be truly happy if they are happy and secure with themselves. It is about not letting others dictate one’s life or making one feel that he/she has to change who he/she is; it is gaining self confidence and maintaining it, drawing strength from self and not needing affirmation from anyone. It is also about being able to stay happy, even on the days when things are not good or easy. Personal success is also about setting goals and reaching them through hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. Achieving personal success is the only way to achieve real happiness and peace with self. Having been brought up in a poor family should not diminish one’s value but should be a motivation to work hard and be able to attain what one’s parent would have achieved. We should appreciate our parents’ hard labor and we know that we can make up for what “we think” is missing to succeed in life. Personal success is about liking oneself and accepting who he is. This is the most important level of success. Without this kind of success and self acceptance it would be hard to succeed in other aspects of life. Other important aspects of live are our academic and/or professional success. These are ongoing, and are what we most often identify the word success with. We most often identify success with being wealthy and important in the professional world. Academic success, though, is about doing one's best; it is about making the most of our potential. It is about hard work, and knowing that one worked to get where one is. It is about being happy in one’s career and being satisfied in one’s accomplishments, whether they are academic or occupational. Professional success includes being happy with the choices one has made, and being proud of what one has done. It is about being interested in one’s own career, whatever it is and getting the grades that one wants. Succeeding academically or professionally is knowing that one sacrificed to get what and where he/she wanted and realizing that hard work leads to happiness. This kind of success is about setting goals and never letting them out of sight. A married person who is determined to succeed academically will do his / her best to achieve it. Apart from having family responsibilities like paying bills, taking care of both the children and the spouse, he/she will have to balance between work and family to have time to study and catch up his/her school work. It might not be easy to balance all this, but because of the determination he/she has to excel academically, one will work hard towards it. The secret of success is knowing what one want, doing whatever it takes to get it and never giving up. If all the three levels of success can be reached, then one has learned what it is to live well. Success only truly comes with being happy. Happiness and success are the accomplices of one another. One cannot have one without the other. Happiness brings success, and success brings even more happiness. For some people, it is something they will do subconsciously, and for others it will be something they will constantly labor for. Because success is something that is different for everyone, it is best that we measure our personal success by our own sense of self worth. To have succeeded is to have lived as you wanted in regard to personal success, societal success and academic or professional success.