Fringe Elements of Success

Success is a constant and a being that is independent of whoever follows it. But it goes with anyone who reaches to it. Some take longer time to reach success, some people reach to it quicker than others while a few never reach there. Before proceeding further, let me define success as something which one considers as achievement and aspires to possess. Success can be anything like someone wanting to establish as a businessman/woman or becoming a rich person or a well-known personality in scientific field or a pilot or a marketing professional, etc.

Success is a constant means that the distance to success is fixed which none can change. Let me explain it with an example: is there any connection between a ladder and the moon? Apparently, there is nothing in between them. The only connection between them is that you cannot catch the moon by climbing a ladder. To catch the moon, you need to take the route shown by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins because the distance to moon is already fixed, and there is no shortcut to reach the moon. In other words, whatever be the target you set as your success-milestone, it is a constant which is away from you and that there are no shortcuts to that success-target but the natural route to it.

How you tread the distance to success and how aware you are about this distance are the variables that determine your reach to success. There are integral elements as well as fringe elements that decide ‘the tread’ to success. The ingredients like goal-setting, determination, passion, hard work, perseverance, discipline, positive attitude , receptiveness, etc. are INTEGRAL to one’s success, and I had explained about them in the blog: https://nowhereperspectives.com/2020/02/12/success-ingredients/. In this blog, I am looking at the FRINGE elements that have the potential to give you a slip between the cup and the lip even when you have put into use all the integral ingredients of success. The integral elements equip you to tread the distance to success while the fringe elements, though seem and sound insignificant, can decelerate or accelerate and may even derail or dovetail your progression to success. In other words, fringe elements of success are not less important as integral elements of success. Smartness, skepticism, perfection, correctness, ignorance, carelessness and jealousy are some of the fringe elements that play no less important roles in your success.

Smartness is the capability to behave in a prepared-way in an unprepared situation. Fear of unknown is felt but is managed as if the person was expected to know the unknown. Smartness is the quick-but-controlled burst of energy derived from self-confidence. The three adjectives: prepared-way, as if and quick-but-controlled that I used to explain smartness underscore one important aspect: speed of thinking. Smartness is not finding solution to a problem but is the speed with which one can manage a difficult situation with relative easiness. How do we do it? Most incidents that happen in our life are related to people whom we deal with, and understanding the incidents is a better way to understand the people because there is no room for personal bias in such an approach. Smart people concentrate on incidents, not people, to get a quick, unbiased idea of an incident, then, use it to manage the situation.

Faith in something stops us from having any doubt about it. However, faith does not demand that we have to stop ourselves from being curious about that something. Skepticism is the curious element of faith. Curiosity demands answers to verify if our faith is right or wrong Absence of curiosity element in faith — absence of skepticism — turns one from faithful to faith-full. To put it raw, not being skeptical turns people from faithful to fanatic. Have faith in someone or something but do not stop being skeptical about it. The words of Bertrand Russel echo this, “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.” An important point to note is that being skeptical is a positive quality provided that one needs to be skeptical about being skeptical.

We often hear people saying that he/she does things in a perfect way. What is perfection? Is it possible for anyone to be perfect? It is possible! Perfection is a state where a man has succeeded in eliminating known mistakes as well as keeping himself open to handling unknown errors, if any, as soon as they become known. An expert is not the one who knows about everything in his/her field, rather a person who looks for, finds out the possible mistakes in his supposed-action and rectify them before he/she acts. They say everything is imperfectly perfect. In a sense it is correct because one can eliminate only known — known to man’s faculties — mistakes, still, there is possibility of unknown fault-lines cracking up in a perfect way of doing things. It is important that one treads the distance to success accompanied by perfection.

Correctness is the absolute way of telling what it most probably means. There is no correctness without probability element being part of it, nor is there no absoluteness in correctness. Being correct has the limitation of this dichotomy. One needs to understand this dichotomy while pursuing the correct way of doing things. Is perfect way of doing things the same as correct way of doing things? Are perfection and correctness one and the same? Actually, these questions are superfluous because correctness vouch for perfection — they are mutually inclusive.

Helplessness is the failure of our capabilities. One of the contributors to that failure is ignorance. Ignorance has two dimensions. Being unaware of something can be set right by acquiring knowledge about it. However, if one is unaware of one’s own unawareness, then nothing much can be done by one for oneself with respect to that ignorance. In other words, ignorance can be cured, but ignorance of ignorance is almost incurable. In any given situation, we need to ask: is that all what I learnt was all that available to learn?

Appreciation bereft of enthusiasm is a half-hearted gesture and, possibly, does reflect an element of jealousy. Jealousy is a big hindrance to progress in life; it ties down a man to the narrow confines of his mind, where he, instead of competing with attributes of success, gets obsessed with his limited knowledge about other’s success, thereby absenting himself from exploring the times that offer opportunities for progress. Do appreciate and learn from other’s success to appreciate your knowledge for success.

Carelessness is the hidden factor that can push success away from you even when all other factors are favorable. Carelessness is the self-assurance of accomplishment of success even when the tread to success is not yet over. A way out of this malice is to be careful of this carelessness factor. By careful I mean that one should be conscientious of such a hidden danger. Unnoticeable is not completely outside the realm of inner eye called conscious. Be careful about carelessness as it is the last impediment that stands between you and your goal.