What is Success?

Well I had thought it was academic achievement, helping others and sporting achievements, all of which I have had, with multiple post grad degrees, major sporting achievements, but now I feel I have let my wife and family down as I had the wrong focus and should have focussed on their achievements and helping them. They have followed me in helping others as medics and not earning much. Money had always been easy for them as we always funded everything , but now I realise they maybe do not have major ambition so I feel have failed them

I'm probably way too easy on myself, blaming others for my lack of success (on both my own terms and on the terms of others). I have been told by an old friend that I need to think of life as little more than a projection. In effect, he was suggesting that I just give up my life struggle and go with the flow. But the problem with that is that most of us find it almost impossible to take such a quantum leap of imagination. Whether we like it or not, we are rather stuck with a World in which there is a definite move away from allowing the vast majority of the global population to have any real ambition at all. It has become increasingly hard for many people to achieve even the acquisition of their most basic human needs.

I'm just hoping, Dave, that you didn't read my post (above) and react to something in it with the notion that you had let your family down. I read your post and immediately thought that you were taking far too much blame on yourself. You might just find that your family have already figured out their individual ambitions. It does sound like they really wanted to achieve similar things to yourself, but ambition isn't something that automatically materialises at a certain age. It takes a lot longer for some people They might just surprise you yet by opening up about their own set of ambitions, just when you are least expecting it. And who is to say, either you or they, what constitutes a major or minor ambition anyway.

I'm probably way too easy on myself, blaming others for my lack of success (on both my own terms and on the terms of others). I have been told by an old friend that I need to think of life as little more than a projection. In effect, he was suggesting that I just give up my life struggle and go with the flow. But the problem with that is that most of us find it almost impossible to take such a quantum leap of imagination. Whether we like it or not, we are rather stuck with a World in which there is a definite move away from allowing the vast majority of the global population to have any real ambition at all. It has become increasingly hard for many people to achieve even the acquisition of their most basic human needs.

I'm just hoping, Dave, that you didn't read my post (above) and react to something in it with the notion that you had let your family down. I read your post and immediately thought that you were taking far too much blame on yourself. You might just find that your family have already figured out their individual ambitions. It does sound like they really wanted to achieve similar things to yourself, but ambition isn't something that automatically materialises at a certain age. It takes a lot longer for some people They might just surprise you yet by opening up about their own set of ambitions, just when you are least expecting it. And who is to say, either you or they, what constitutes a major or minor ambition anyway.