We want to achieve many things in this world. If you observe closely, human life keeps passing by as we fulfill one wish after another. But have you ever thought about the cost of this success? It often comes at the cost of your mental peace.
Today, every person is worried about something or the other. One suffers from anxiety, another from depression.
Have you ever paused to consider whether your drive for success is so intense that you are losing yourself? Is worldly success more valuable than your inner peace?
The most important question we should ask ourselves is: Why am I rushing so much? What is the purpose behind it? In simple terms, why do I want to achieve success or reach my goals?
We find an answer to this in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where he writes that the highest goal of life is happiness. If this is true, then why do people take so much stress? Why do they make themselves depressed?
I think the answer is this: we have made success our ultimate purpose, forgetting about happiness. We have forgotten that all the goals we want to achieve are actually meant to make us happy.
Think about it: is success worth it if it brings anxiety and deep sorrow along with it?
Recently, a 25-year-old girl died due to excessive work and resulting depression, unable to realize that no work is greater than life itself.
I want to honestly share my own situation here. I am feeling nervous at the moment too. Sometimes I feel sad and irritable about my future, wondering whether I will get into a PhD program or not. Will I be able to achieve my dream of becoming a professor? These questions cross my mind often
But today, I realized that no dream is greater than my mental peace. After all, I want to become a professor to be happy—so why should I destroy my mental health in the process?
I don’t want to offer any quick-fix solutions right now. I just want to end with a question: Is any success worth more than your life and your mental peace?
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