Real Success In Life

By: Dele Fatokun


Success in life means different things to different people in different places. But to start with, we need to be informed that what man regards as success in life, in most cases, is often an antithesis of what God actually terms as success. Much has been amplified in literature of what really constitutes success on earth. It is therefore in order to examine what success means. Success has been described in Encarta Dictionary as achievement of something planned or attempted, attainment of fame, wealth, or power or something that turns out well. These are among many positions of different people on what success stands for.

These perceptions of success above seem to reflect the general cosmopolitan view of success, the depiction of success as earthly and ephemeral attainment. However, we cannot discountenance earthly success as the Almighty Creator also wishes all his creatures success in all their godly endeavours. Beyond this, it is a general aspiration of all homo sapiens to succeed in life.  To this end, success should be seen as a multifarious and polymorphous concept. The implication of this is that a one-sided success cannot be regarded as complete or real success in life. The parameter for determining a true or real success should be holistic and all encompassing such that it will encapsulate the most essential and critical aspects of human life. This is needful to be explicated here as majority of people’s perception and view of success is more or less tied to any sort of achievement that is attained in just a fragment of life.

This might have informed the holistic view of success as something related to earthly accomplishments. The character forms man for hereafter is always relegated to the background. For the vast majority of people in the world, success in life is only determined by such indices as the famous institutions attended, attainment of political offices, the types of or number of certificates possessed, number of children procreated, securing plum jobs, the amount of wealth accumulated and acquired, the number of awards received, the high positions held in corporations or governments, material possessions acquired around the world, career accomplishments, and so on and so forth. But real success in life is more than these!       

Succinctly put, this general view of success as just an attainment of fame, wealth or power, to be realistic, serves as the prime causative agent of the unholy passion and desperation to succeed by all means in all nations of the world today. People place material possessions or life accomplishments higher and over the character of the accomplished fellow. The source of the wealth, fame or feat of the celebrated is of no use to them. All they are after is just to have their own share. There is a high degree of increase in adulation of wealth, celebration of ill-gotten wealth and accomplishments in the world of today. This belief and view of success become preponderant in Africa where poverty has for long enslaved the masses.

The reason is now very clear why many people do not care anymore how they make money, obtain certificates, amass wealth or get to the top positions in their places of work. Heartlessly, they loot government treasuries as they like.  They can take the lives of their fellows; life that has no replacement just to have their way. Bribery, kidnapping for money, baby factory, robbing, prostitution, ritualism and money laundering are tokens among many horrifying means through which people desperately hustle to make names and get rich by all means in our societies. They just want to get there anyway and anyhow.

Can success obtained in these ways be regarded as real? It is needless to dispute the truism that a real and true success is the type not obtained in a questionable and fraudulent way.  Yet, people ignorantly or willingly celebrate these people as men and women of substance and accomplishments. Have they really succeeded in life? What then constitutes real success in life? Which man or woman can be regarded and celebrated as possessing real success in life? This article will limit itself to only five signs of real success.

First, your success must not be obtained in a questionable and fraudulent manner. The real success is only obtained through the general accepted norms in the society. Every nation or organization has its rules and regulations that govern it. When you go contrary to the rules to achieve your goal, then your success cannot be regarded as real.  When you steal the money that is meant for everyone in your corporation or nation, your wealth cannot be real. When you kidnap innocent people to make brisk money, your success is fake. When you go into immorality or pay for your certificates as students, your success is a counterfeit.  You may become popular, rich and honoured around, but within your heart, something must tell you that your achievements are not real and that you are a fake. A fake and a failure you are.

Charity, as the saying goes, begins at home. Can you regard your success as real when your immediate family cannot feel the impact of your success?  Real success must impact positively on your family. Don’t be an angel outside and a devil inside. According to Matthew To one, real success in life is solely determined on who you become, the character and attributes you develop. You cannot be hostile and miserly at home and playing Father Christmas outside and regard yourself a real successful man or woman. The real successful people are not only those who use their accomplishments to uplift their families, but as well use their amazing character to build a happy home. They are men and women of happy and successful homes, which means their success is not limited to material possessions alone.  One good mark of a man of real success is his exemplary life.



Real success must also have human face; it is such that have positive impact on people. Success that is not shared is useless and cannot be spread or appreciated by people. Your wealth or harnessed potentials can only become meaningful and useful when it is made to touch and transform lives of others. The seat you occupy or certificate you possess can only be meaningful and appreciated when it is made to help the downtrodden in the society.  Real successful men and women are usually sanguine and sacrificial; they are devoid of self and egoistic tendencies. They know their achievements and accomplishments in life are meant to help others.

A real success will make you happy and live a fulfilled life, not causing you regret, sorrow and misery in life. Perhaps, you might have heard of people that hanged themselves despite their acclaimed success in life.  One simple reason for their sadness, sorrow and self termination of their lives might be that the source of their feat in life is questionable and condemnable. When your riches cause you sleepless nights on your cozy bed, then there must be a skeleton in your cupboard. When a public officer in Nigeria begins to become scared of EFCC or ICPC then we may begin to wonder how he or she came about his/her stupendous wealth.  When a university graduate feels jittery when he is called upon to defend his certificate, then how he obtained the certificate becomes obvious, a fraudulent means. The real success is the one that gives you joy, peace and rest of mind.

Is your success acceptable to God? This is a very crucial question because whether we believe it or not, all people must give account of their deeds on earth to God someday.  A real success is the one that is acceptable to God. If the source of your success is sinful and opposed to the sanctity of God’s Holy Scriptures, then your success cannot be real. More still, if God is not at the centre of your life, at the end when you might have closed your eyes in death, it will dawn on you that you have wasted your life and achieved almost nothing on earth. In the gospel according to Saint Luke in chapter sixteen, the rich man had all what is regarded as real success on earth. He lived sumptuously and saw no reason to accept the gospel that would give him the greatest achievement on earth. Regrettably, he happened to be among the many all over the world who feel they can do without God. They fall victim to the mentality that pursuing and achieving these other successes supersede knowing God, thus neglecting the very thing that determines ‘real’ success on earth.  By the time the rich man realized his folly and the emptiness of achievements and success without God, it was too late. He was already in the torments of eternal hell. The door of grace had been closed against him. You can enter into that grace that the Lord Jesus Christ brought to man. He says: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest’.

From the foregoing, it is evident that the real success is balanced and holistic. It touches all areas of human life. For instance, if you are academically successful without good character to relate with people in the society, your success is inconclusive, fragmental and not beneficial. It may not lead to a fulfilled life. Real success is the one that positively enhances the spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and social developmental wellbeing of man.