Enslaved to Success
At age 29, I had achieved a conventional dream.
I had risen to the position of leading project manager at my software company, and I was reaping the rewards. My salary afforded me a lovely apartment, a new car, and a comfortable lifestyle.
Logically, I should have been happy.
But I was not. I felt half-alive inside.
Waking up, getting ready for work I did not like, driving to work, waiting in traffic, feeling possessed by my pathetic Point A-to-Point B mission, heading back home from work, unwinding from work, going to bed.
Rinse and repeat.
I had enslaved myself to the tyranny of traditional success, hoping that my nice salary could buy my happiness.
But true happiness, I've learned, runs much deeper, originating from an inner sense of meaning and purpose.
Society was selling me the idea that I needed to have certain things and live in a certain way to be considered successful.
What I needed, however, was to redefine success.
So, at the height of my so-called successful career, I flew to Cyprus, where I am right now, in order to find perspective.
That little solo vacation changed everything. My newfound external connection with Cyprus’s beauty was morphing into an internal one, a connection with my own nature, and the internal compass was pointing to a new place and a new direction.
Life has a funny way of repeating itself. Once again, I'm recommitting myself to the resolution I made almost a decade ago:
Regardless of the cost and the seeming difficulty, I shall go where inspiration takes me.
Inspiration, not the whim of society's definition of success, will be my one and only North Star.
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Writer
Tal Gur is a location independent entrepreneur, author, and impact investor. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His most recent book and bestseller, The Art of Fully Living - 1 Man, 10 Years, 100 Life Goals Around the World, has set the stage for his new mission: elevating society to its abundance potential.
