Shraddha Mishra


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Challenging The Idea of a Successful & Happy Life | Inspiring Story #30
INSPIRE ME | MY INSPIRED LIFESTYLEREAL LIFE INSPIRING STORIESFREEDOM TO TRAVEL LIFESTYLEKARLETTA MARIE
karletta-marie-living-a-freedom-happy-life
A short story about challenging the world's definition of success and creating your own happy life filled with meaning.

The crosswalk sounds the alert to wait. I scan my surrounds. People shuffle past, unsmiling, like a montage of uninspired worker clones from an apocalypse movie; black, grey, blue suits. We are the city workers going about our daily routines. A woman dressed in a red linen jacket rushes past, pushing me aside. She’s frantic, like she's running to an emergency. Perhaps she is.

Beside me, stand three silver-headed businessmen. Two wear grey suits that blend into the glass facade behind them. One of the men, the fatter one, has a black jacket thrown over his arm while he sips his coffee. “Sure, mate, I’ll get my girl to book that in,” he coughs.

is-this-a-happy-life
Surely, there's more to life than this?
I heave out a sigh. Will I have to meet the property agent this afternoon, while my boss gets drunk at the men's club with his high-flyer money mates? My eyes sting, my limbs feel like cement bags strapped to my body. I am exhausted, tired of the tight deadlines, early starts and late finishes.

Tears well up in my burning eyes. I'm doing the same work-to-home, home-to-work routine every day, barely coping with this rut called life – a life where the joy and peace I longed for was sporadic at best! Is this what you call a happy life? Surely, there is more to life than this?

Questioning The Concept of 'Success'
I started to question the concept of success, as society had termed it. I watched the 'successful' people around me, people who had walked the path to success and had "made it".

My boss was thirty-four years old, a wealthy property developer. He drove a Porsche Boxster, he lived in a beautiful home, in a prestigious area. He wore designer clothes and had his name on the outside of a high-rise building. Yet, I rarely saw him smile. He was at the office before I arrived, and he was there when I left, except for Fridays, when he'd leave early for the club.

Though generous of heart, my boss was often cranky. On most days, he would have a bout of cursing. He would throw his phone across the room, perhaps in an attempt to unload the day-to-day stress of running a growing corporation.

He wasn’t the only “successful” person I observed. It seemed to me, society had taught us some untruths about what success was. I saw all this striving, but for what? What was it all for?

Rushing around, stressed out, with no time for the things that truly add meaning to our life. Was that the definition of success?

I stopped and thought about what success meant to me ...
I thought about what true success looked like for me.

I wanted to live more moments. To wake-up to beauty, to enjoy a slow breakfast with the man I love, to spend more time laughing, to have meaningful relationships, to take lingering lunches overlooking the beach. I wanted time to notice the clouds. To catch a sunset. I wanted to volunteer abroad and learn from other cultures. See how people live, listen to their life stories. I wanted to travel and experience life.

What I didn’t want, was a life full of stress and mediocrity. I had to try something different. I had to find a way out. AND eventually I did.

At first, I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know if the life I wanted was possible for me. My father was a garbage collector, I grew up on the “tough side of town”. Was I asking too much from life? Shouldn't I just be grateful for the life I had?

I was grateful ... and because of that, I wanted to make the most of what opportunities I had available to me. I put a plan together. With lots of prayers and encouragement from my husband, I got the courage to start my own hustle on the side.
© shraddha mishra