If you ask me, am I afraid of my own success?
The answer is yes, I am.
I wasn't afraid before today.
But a post made me question myself, about my past and do I want to repeat it?
Before explaining myself, let me share a famous story with you all.
I believe that all of you must have heard the story of a poor farmer who found gold while ploughing his fields.
Being so poor, he had never seen so much wealth in his life. He was scared that someone will steal that gold from him.
So, he didn't dug that gold out.
Instead, he hides it.
At night, being afraid if it was still there, he would dig the gold again, fancy it and hide it back.
Because of this he couldn't sleep and his life turned into a mess.
Now, I can't remember how exactly the story ended but I can relate the events with the story of my life.
Four years ago, I was just 22 years old. I was young and naive.
For me, success had just one meaning—money.
And I was able to find the success at such a tender age.
Someone recommended me to join a new company where I could make lots of money and achieve financial freedom in a matter of months.
Being a foolish young boy, I didn't question much, joined the company and started looking for more recruits.
Basically it was an MLM. People used to bait more people, showing them dreams of financial freedom.
I knew a couple of people who would love to join something like that. So I demonstrated a plan and they were interested in it.
Long story short, I ended up recruiting them, made a lot of money.
The company went bust in a matter of months. A lot of people lost their money and I ended up being rich.
As no one I knew lost his money, I didn't felt guilty at that time.
At the age of 22, I achieved everything that I wanted in my life—lots of money.
Success was mine, but I wasn't feeling successful at all.
There was something missing.
But you don't question yourself when you are achieving, you question yourself when you are losing.
So, I didn't thought much, enjoyed myself and carried on.
The money I made, I invested it all in bitcoin in early 2017.
An year later, it was crypto season, everything was going crazy.
I didn't ride it all the way up but I made more than enough money.
Here I was, a 23 year old guy with more money than I have ever wanted.
But when you don't earn it the right way, you end up losing it all.
In the last two years, my success streak ended.
I made a lot of bad financial decisions.
Lost most of my money.
Ended up being broke, sometimes felt depressed about it.
About half an year ago, things have changed for me.
Now, when I think about my last 4 years, I feel happy about it.
I have made and lost so much and that too in a couple of years.
However, I have gained a life time of experience, hundreds of lessons that I could not have learnt have I not taken this road.
I don't know why but I feel relieved now, living a normal life again.
Though I did not end up with a lot of money, I am more satisfied with my life now.
Today, I was reading a post from @abundance.tribe where @elamental asked a question, "Are you afraid of your own success?" from all the members of the hive platform.
I questioned myself what success means to me now?
I still feel like having enough wealth is the meaning of success for me.
But the next question struck me.
Do I want to be successful again in my life like I was before.
Or in simple terms, do I want to become instantly rich again?
And that's when I kind of felt afraid of my success.
The answer was definitely no!
Of course I don't want to go through all those ups and downs again.
For sure, once is enough for me in this life.
So, I need to redefine my meaning of success if I ever intend to be successful again.
From now on, money will only be a means to achieve something recognisable in my life.
For example, a business or something.
Even if it is a very small business.
And it must be useful to others.
Otherwise there is no meaning in making money again.
I don't want to be a multi-millionaire just to flex my house and cars.
Instead, what I want is to provide something valuable to the people.
And when the world will start seeing any value inside me, that's when I believe I will be successful truly.
This is the kind of success that I feel will be sustainable.
