Certainly not the car you drive, the house you live in, or the size of your bank account. A person can have all those things and more and still be an empty vessel. If one can look back and see ways they have left this place in better shape than the way they found it– and others acknowledge as much– then maybe they’re onto something.
Forget about corporate ladders and acquisitions and material possessions and money in the bank. There’s a difference between securing the means to live in the absence of need, and just showing off. Maybe success can look like knowing when enough is enough.
And if one looks back with the satisfaction of having worked at something they always dreamed of doing, well, that’s icing on the cake.
