I have been reflecting lately on how I should define and measure success. It is quite hard to concretize what I feel and think about it. There a lot of books written on the subject and am so tempted to get one to ease myself on my pondering. However I was reminded by G.K. Chesterton when he said:

There are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books.

Pretty ironic, huh. Amusing perhaps, but it rings some truth in it.

Should success be our ultimate goal in life? Rumi, a Sufi mystic poet and philosopher, gave me a tentative answer or another question rather?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from,
and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is form elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
And I intend to end up there.

Does sacrificing everything in pursuit of success worth it? Was it Jesus who asked:

What profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

If I do succeed in my career or in any of my endeavors, is that the end? Or I strive for more? Irving Berlin cautioned me:

The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.

How do you define success? How do you qualify or quantify it? Is the pursuit of happiness hinges on how successful we are?