The Successful Person

By

Brian Faulds ©2007

In my view, success is measured by maintaining happiness in life. I agree with the

Classical Greeks when they say that happiness is living well for a good life.

Take for example, a fellow named Joe; he was never lucky. Putting together preparation

and opportunity in his world was way over the top. Joe lived in a world where he was relatively

powerless. He lacked the leisure in his life which would afford him the capability to prepare for

the very unlikely event that opportunity would present itself. He walked 5 kilometers a day to

haul 80 pounds of water (only 10 gallons) back to his dwelling in a single trip. Joe lived in a one

room grass shack, with split bamboo strips for a floor. No furniture, no bed. He cooked his

breakfast on a clay stove with dried oxen dung for fuel. Joe was orthopedically exceptional in

one of his lower limbs, and suffered from malnutrition and tuberculosis; he was literally

incapable of hard work. Yet, Joe worked hard.

Joe was a husband and a father of four children. As I knew him, Joe always had a smile

on his face, a joke in his pocket, and a positively optimistic view towards life. His optimism was

not naïve. Everything Joe did was done with purposeful behavior and practical thought. He could

concretely conceptualize his natural desires, the real goods that needed to be enumerated in his

life, and the moral virtue required to cultivate the habit of making correct choices. You know, the

choices that move you towards happiness.

He achieved schemes and scripts to accommodate his environment, and developed a plan

to acquire that which is really good. This is what is most important to success. To me, Joe was a

successful person. That is, a knowledgeable and practical thinking person who prudently orders

their natural desires and real goods, in a developed practiced plan, to pursue and maintain

happiness.