What is success?

When Obama won US elections, he achieved “success”. India “succeeded” when it was able to send in a vehicle to the moon. Success is the destination, which is agreed upon by us and people living around us that, on reaching will lead to the ultimate thing “happiness”. That “happiness” can be either direct or indirect or even avoiding unhappiness.

We strive for success because it makes us happy. Does that mean everytime I am happy I have succeeded? What if even after loosing a game, I feel happy?! What if the society tags me as a failure and I genuinely feel happy inside inspite of that. So is success very subjective? But then why do we run behind things that it is going to give us the happiness which after achieving we realize that we have to chase some other success? Why is there no ultimate success? Why is happiness never permanent?

Or is Success a paradigm created by our society to keep us all busy and survive?

What is Success?

I dont know.. Do you?!

Check out this orkut application I developed for friendfeed.

http://www.orkut.com/Main#Application.aspx?appId=244036839059

I added the new image badge to the plugin now.

Just checked out the post about friendfeed’s new image widget. Just too cool.

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008/10/friendfeed-image-widgets-for-wordpress.html

Atlast I am showing off my real addiction to the world. Check out the top bar!

Itz been a while isnt it?! I have been having a pretty crazy week when it comes to work and things to do. Today afternoon I got some good sleep after a long time. After waking up, I came to the balcony and saw this.

Made my day :-)! [The picture was taken using my macbook, So bear with the quality ;)]

I was at Port Stanley roaming around with my camera to take some interesting shots. Suddenly, one of my friends called me. We were talking over the phone and at the same time I was trying to capture this bee, which was hovering around the flower. After struggling for some time, I told her how it would have been a perfect picture if only the bee cooperates with me. Then she replied something, which made me think and triggered me to write this blog.

She said, if the bee is going to help me out, then the picture might not look perfect and special in my head, as it will be, when it is taken out of my natural “skill” with some struggle.

I found it amusing initially and later I had to agree with her. Sometimes, even though, we are all focused in the goal and think it as the most important entity, the journey plays a crucial role in deciding whether we are happy with what we are doing are not. The struggle using which we achieve the goals, most of the time define the degree of happiness and confidence we get when we actually achieve our goal.

Then I wonder and ask myself, why is that, struggling for something doesn’t give me the momentary happiness, when it actually defines my overall satisfaction at the end of the day.

Niagara in the night!, originally uploaded by R Karthick.

One of the most satisfying pics, I have ever taken

I love playing in the rain.

Yesterday, I played in rain after a pretty long time. There is something about rain and cricket combination that makes you forget everything else in the life. It has been some while, I had got into that kind of state, till the last snow.

I sometimes wonder why is that the extreme climates get me excited than the normal one? May be there is always some part of me which wants me experience something different than what I am currently experiencing. I think that is the basis behind the growth of each individual. However, is there any time, in which we have to call it a day and just start “accepting” things?!

I have always thought that eternal happiness is the ultimate thing in life. Everyday the choices we make, the things we do all is either directly or indirectly is attributed to happiness.

In that case, when I see so much unhappiness around me and in me, I sometimes wonder, are we judging the things which will give us happiness well?

With this question in mind, I would like to share this inference I had with my life over the last six months.

I was once the biggest advocate of freedom. I have always believed that in my life to have total happiness I should have freedom. My life should be without any rules. My current mood should decide what I want to do now.

I am in that kinda situation these days, where I can really do what I want to. I gave my freedom a free run for the last 6 months. With time, I kinda figured out that somewhere something is wrong. When life is driven by your current state of mind, most of the time, it is wayward and erratic.

So I decided to introduce some simple rules, some really basic ones which are not very hard to follow. Surprise, Surprise. For the first time since six months, I feel happy, I feel satisfied. I can tell you, if you know me, I don’t get happy that easily.

So the moral of the story is two fold

1. If you have thought that you know what will make you happy. Hang on! May be you are not right?! I am not saying that just because I am wrong, so you will be also wrong.. I am saying give it a second thought.

2. Is freedom the ultimate goal for happiness? As gandhi rightly said, with freedom, comes great responsibilities. I guess with freedom, we will have more responsibilities over life and we remain answerable to us more than ever before.

have fun!

Freedom, originally uploaded by R Karthick.

Even though this is not the technically the best pic I have taken, this is one of my most favorite pics! Just takes me to a different world everytime I see this :).

How can I not upload this video? This is simply awe-inspiring. Nowadays I am uploading all the videos, I like in orkut. However, this one is special really special :). Definitely deserves a separate post!