What is success? What does it take to be successful? Why are so many people unhappy even when they have everything others think they should have to be happy? These are questions we have all asked ourselves at some point.
In 1905, a Boston magazine held a contest asking readers to send in their own definition of success in fewer than 100 words: the things a person needs in order to feel successful. The magazine would choose the best answer and award the winner a prize of 250 dollars.
A Kansas housewife named Bessie Stanley heard about the contest and submitted her definition of success. Tens of thousands of people from every educational background entered and, to everyone’s surprise, Mrs Stanley won with a definition that at first looked like a poem, yet summed up perfectly what we might call the ingredients of success. These were Bessie Stanley’s words (in our own translation):
What success is made of
Success has come to the one who has lived well,
laughed often and loved deeply;
who has earned the respect of intelligent men
and the love of little children;
who has filled a niche and finished a task;
who has left the world better than it was found,
whether through a better poppy, a flawless poem or a soul saved;
who has never been without an eye for the beauty of the earth;
who has always looked for the best in others
and given them whatever they had;
the one whose life was an inspiration
and whose memory is a blessing.
Bessie Stanley probably wrote one of the first definitions of success of all time, and on more than one occasion, by mistake or on purpose, people have tried to attribute it to Ralph Waldo Emerson or Robert Louis Stevenson. But no. This definition belongs to a housewife.
Further reading
- 16 hard things you will have to do to achieve success
- 40 universal truths for success in business and your career
- 15 habits for success
Featured image: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
