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I was reading this interview of Amit Saha, the head of Google in India where he talks about success in LIFE and trying to defend the turf of success which I found pretty interesting. Amit Saha says once we attain success, it is quite easy for us to be a little defensive and try to maintain that. This is very much in similar lines of Elizabeth Gilbert in the Ted Talks where she talks about how her first successful book “Eat Pray and Love” became an impediment for her to achieve further success in life.

The first time I heard this thought, I naturally wondered as to how success would stop someone from going ahead in life. I mean it is pretty simple right, you try something, realize an amazing success and continue to take risks cos you have not been hurt, there has been nothing to hold you back and pull you down. Simple math right?

As it turns out, LIFE is hardly math is it? When you succeed at something, it is a natural tendency for us to save that success, try and ensure that we are met with success no matter what we try our hands on with. In fact the fear of failure is much larger and stronger cos we realize that there are greater expectations from us and a lot of people answerable to. So what do we do in such a case? The simplest thing to do is step back a little, of course get a little defensive and try to maintain a status quo so that we don’t want to fall short of expenses and we don’t want to disappoint anyone, let alone ourselves.

Naturally, we refrain ourselves from taking further risks, try and play it safe and then constantly curse ourselves for not having the courage to go ahead in life and face some risks. We miss the adrenaline rush and give the reasons likes security, society, safety, commitments, EMI, etc. This reminds me of a quote by Shiv Khera “ Inspiration is playing to win while playing not to lose is desperation”

I think no matter what we say and what we try to do to send a message that our thoughts were right in the first place, we all have the tendency to remain safe, reduce the risks and uncertainties in life and marry to the certainties of thoughts and the safety of riskless endeavors with little or no adventure while we secretly hanker for it. Thing is that we all will succeed in our lives and it is easy to stay put and go on to the defense mode where we try and protect. But look at it this way, if you are in a river and rowing, you are either going ahead or going behind, there is no standing still! There is no defense, there is an illusion of one but none in reality!

Either ways, the message is quite plain and direct – the moment you achieve success in life or an achievement in LIFE, that is the end of it, you start over again. Have fun with your success, rejoice the hangover, but don’t let it stop you with anything. It probably did not do earlier, why should you let it do now? Life is an amazing endeavor at all corners, all we have to do is to keep forgetting things a bit once in a while!

related:

The only success in LIFE

Are failures a part of success?