So many of us are driven by an ambition that informs our everyday choices.   Choices that, when summed, have a defining effect on every aspect of our lives; our sense of self, the character of our relationships and the very pattern of our everyday life.

Yet if asked “what is success for you?  What is the desired product of your ambition?” I  imagine many of us would have a hard time giving an adequate or well-considered  answer.   You would probably hear the standard external markers of money or title.  Just as likely you would get the long pause that told you this was the first time the question had been pondered.

And yet it is a critical question.   Because ambition is generally mindless -  it is rarely connected to any deeper consideration of what will bring you fulfillment.   You arrive at each new destination with a sense of wonder and disappointment – how did I get here?

I came across this in an HBR Blog by Bill Taylor and thought it elegantly stated a more complete, rich (no pun intended) definition of success.  One worth sharing and considering:

“I think back often to an interview we published in an early issue of Fast Company with the philosopher Jacob Needleman, a professor at San Francisco State University, who wrote a great book called Money and the Meaning of Life.

“What’s your definition of success?” we asked Needleman. His answer: “To be totally engaged with all my functions, all my faculties, all my capacities in life. To me that would be success. I grew up around the Yiddish language, and in Yiddish there are about 1,000 words that mean ‘fool.’ There’s only one word that means an authentic human being: mensch. My grandmother would say, ‘You’ve got to be a mensch,’ and that has to do with what we used to call character. To be successful means to have developed character.”

via The New York Times Is Dead Wrong – Bill Taylor – Harvard Business Review.