Desire for success

Sometimes I feel that the desire to succeed is the beginning of my downfall. I am not saying that success is bad. I am also not saying that is good. When I desire to succeed, I feel that I am concentrating on the wrong thing. It is true that a goal (which is my desire, in most of the cases) will help you focus better. But, in this case, aren’t we focusing on a moving target? What happens when we get near this goal? Doesn’t it move further? That is the true nature of desire. Desire is always moving. It never stays put at one place. If the happiness or satisfaction we derive out of our work is tied to a moving body like desire, our happiness also moves out of our reach. Hence, I believe that my desire to succeed can bring my downfall. Then what should I do? Not desiring success does not mean that my work will be shoddy. Actually, it won’t be. Think about it. Success is usually associated with how others perceive us. Whatever your definition of success might be, it will still involve society in some form factor. When we work to achieve this so-called “success”, we are working for somebody else. That is never liberating. Instead, when we do work for our own selves, when we don’t care about getting attention from society, we create masterpieces.
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