Can success still be wrong for your life?
When an opportunity matters to you, it is natural to wonder whether you can make it work. There is another question worth asking before you say yes: what if it works exactly as promised?
Imagine getting the position, doing it well and receiving the recognition that comes with it. Then consider the life you would be living. An opportunity can deliver everything it offers and still cost you the things that made success worth wanting.
In “Success and failure redefined”, Innocent tests achievement against a more personal question: does he love his life? Something gained is part of the answer, but so is the life required to gain and keep it.
A Spark from Questions Asked
Any opportunity that offers me "success" at the expense of my love for my own life is nothing but an evil illusion. One that will disappear as soon as I "succeed," giving way to the cruel reality.
Suppose you have sung in a community choir for years. You look forward to rehearsals, to the awkward first attempts at a new piece and the evening when the voices finally come together. When the chair steps down, the members ask you to take over.
You are pleased they trust you. You care about the choir and want it to flourish. The position offers a chance to help shape something that has become an important part of your life.
But the work would change your place in it. During rehearsals, you would often be meeting sponsors or settling arrangements for the next concert. You could become an excellent chair while rarely getting to sing.
The choir might gain bookings and members under your care. Everyone could be right to call your work a success. Yet you might spend those same months missing the experience that drew you there.
Ask what you would be succeeding at
Leading a choir and singing in one are different ways of taking part. Both can be rewarding. The invitation becomes easier to judge when you ask which experience you want, rather than treating the more senior role as a better version of the one you already have.
You might discover that organising concerts appeals to you. You enjoy bringing people together and solving the practical difficulties that let them perform. In that case, less singing could be a cost you willingly accept for another kind of satisfaction.
Or you might realise that you are considering the chair mainly because declining feels ungrateful. The duties hold little interest, and the rehearsals you would miss are the part you love. The honour is real, but it does not make the work a good fit.
An evening spent organising does not by itself mean an opportunity is wrong. Much of what we value needs effort that is tiring or dull. Preparing a concert can make the singing possible. The concern is whether the ongoing arrangement would leave you without the thing the effort was meant to serve.
Before deciding, find out what the responsibility actually requires. Ask the outgoing chair how often they missed rehearsals and whether the duties can be shared. Details may reveal room for a version you would welcome, or confirm a cost you do not want to accept.
You can appreciate being asked and still need that answer. “I would like to help, but singing is why I am here. Would I be able to keep rehearsing with the choir?”
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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