I've talked about success before in these Quote-A-Day blog posts.
And, I've been thinking about another aspect of success over the last few days.
I've mentioned before that success should never be easy, and when we fail, we need to use that failure as the first step towards future success.
And yet, this evening, as I was reflecting on the last few days of vacation, I started to think a little differently about success. I thought about what the minds behind Disney (not just Walt's) must have gone through to create such an intricate system of entertainment, culture, and revenue-generation (not to mention non-stop marketing).
The success of the Disney franchise (or empire, depending on which side of the fence you stand on) was no doubt built on the blood, sweat, and tears of many whose names we don't know, and likely never will. And to get Disney to where it was, these people likely worked unbelievably late hours (watch Saving Mr. Banks for an example of this re: Mary Poppins), and likely sacrificed family, friends, and physical and mental well-being to make the Magic Kingdom a reality.
Success without sacrifice likely isn't worth being celebrated, as it means that the success has really not been met, or was so easy, that no challenge was gained from it. Sacrifice doesn't have to be seen as a bad thing, but rather, an opportunity to see that our actions always reap consequences, and whether good or bad, we can't be the same person we were after things in our lives have changed.
We shouldn't expect success to continue to bring the status quo. In fact, we should welcome the fact that with each success we encounter, we have to sacrifice something that currently exists in our lives. It is this duality of purpose that makes us as reflective as we need to be.
Is it better to reap the benefits of success, or avoid the pitfalls of sacrifice? This question is always an important one to ask, regardless of whether we currently know (or will ever know) the answer.
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