I remember a time when a good friend of mine asked something personal years ago. The question was :
What does success mean for you? What is your biggest achievement in life?
I tried to find an intellegent answer to the question but I couldn't find any. I was just a guy who was far from "successful" word. My life was just no different than other regular people. Finding an anwers to the question was though.
So I answered her :
I don't have any answer for the question. I don't know because I am just a pathetic guy.
But my friend insisted to hear my answer. In her opinion, I was a succesful person. So she kept pushing me to give an answer to the question. Hey, I was just a simple minded person, so I gave up. I didn't have any answer. Instead of answering the question, I asked the same question back to her. But she had her answer already.
She told me this :
For me, succes is when I become an inspiration to other people 😉
She continued her explanation, she said
"No matter how rich you are, how good you are, how intelligent you are, etc...it's no use if none of those achievement inspired other people. When we inspire other people, that means we have done something great, that's why other people got inspired, right? You don't need to be a super rich, famous, or fancy person to be success, because success is not measured by material achievement. All you need to do is something that makes other people inspired."
At the time, I just nod and all agreed to her opinion without exactly knowing what she meant. At the time, we promised to do good things in life and inspired each other.
As time went by, things happened and people grew up. I became to realize what she meant with the words. Right now, I completely agree to her opinion.
This world has so many successful people. Do they all inspired so many other people? Who knows... No body know about somebody's feeling. Feeling inspired by people who close to is is just like falling love, you feel it but you are too reluctant to admit it.
By the way, that good friend of mine, we haven't met each other for really long time, we haven't communicated each other since 2013. We lost contact. I really miss her. There were so many wise words I got from her (She is way older than me). Now I know that she has inspired me a lot even if she aren't aware of it.
Photo was taken using Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom, no editing process was involved other than resizing