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Last Updated on May 1, 2025 by The Unbounded Thinker
If you deeply contemplate the modern idea of success, you’ll realize that success is an illusion created by the ego. The need to succeed mainly arises from the need to be seen, validated, or feel superior. In other words, what we often call success is merely the ego’s way of securing a sense of identity.
The ego loves external validation. It is obsessed with titles, possessions, admiration, and recognition. When you achieve something, the egoic mind says, “Now I matter.” But this sense of mattering is unstable. Once you get used to your newly found achievement, the egoic mind seeks the next achievement, the next goal, or generally, the next reason to feel significant. This endless chase creates inner restlessness masked as ambition.
If you take a closer look at your desire to succeed, you’ll realize that it’s not truly the success you’re after. What you actually crave is the attention, validation, and sense of superiority that success appears to offer. The ego whispers that once you succeed, you will finally be worthy, finally be seen, and finally matter. But this is an illusion created and sustained by the ego.
If you felt whole, complete, and secure, there would be no obsessive desire to prove anything. You wouldn’t need the world’s approval to feel worthy, and the need for success wouldn’t exist.
You might argue that you want to succeed so that you provide adequately for those you love. But if you’re honest, you’ll realize that this is a comforting excuse. You don’t need extraordinary success to care for those you love.
The ego disguises the pursuit of success as normal despite that it is often founded on the fear of being nothing, the fear of being forgotten, and the fear of being average. The egoic mind creates the illusion that success will silence these fears. But success is just a moving target. When you reach one goal, the mind immediately invents another. You are never allowed to rest, because the ego thrives on the chase and not the arrival.
This article does not imply that it’s bad to chase success. There’s nothing wrong with setting big goals, striving for excellence, or achieving great things. The key message here is to become conscious of the fact that it’s the need for validation, for approval, for being seen as worthy or important, is what makes you want success badly.
I’ve come to realize that when I’m fully aware that my desire for success is mostly fueled by ego, the pursuit of success becomes less stressful. The moment I recognize that I already have what I need and that my craving to succeed is just an attempt to satisfy the ego, the pressure to succeed reduces as the need to succeed becomes less urgent. The chase becomes more peaceful and sometimes, enjoyable. I still move forward, I still work and grow, but without that the depressing feeling that something is missing or that I need to become someone else to feel whole. I work and create not from fear or lack but from presence and authenticity.
The truth is, life is not just about reaching some grand end-goal. If you believe you must succeed so that you enjoy life, then you’re placing joy at a distant point in the future. And even if you do achieve success, you will realize that you missed the entire experience of living because you were always focused on getting somewhere else.
Success can still be pursued, but let it be a conscious pursuit. Let it be guided by clarity and not desperation. Understand that success is not a necessity: it is not a matter of life or death. It is only an illusion created by the ego to convince you that you are not enough as you are.
When you see through this illusion, success becomes optional. And in that space where the pressure to prove yourself disappears, you discover a peace that isn’t tied to outcomes and a quiet joy that comes simply from being alive.
You may still pursue what matters to you, but the pursuit becomes less draining. You’re not running to catch up to some imagined version of yourself. You’re not chasing success to feel like you belong.
You begin to move with a calm heart, and you decide that you’ll be at peace whether success comes or not. Because it might come, or it might not, since it’s also determined by many factors beyond your control.
You then choose to welcome success, and see it as a blessing, if it comes, and you also decide that you won’t feel bad if it doesn’t because deep down you know that nothing is lost. You lived a peaceful and meaningful life and you tried your best. That becomes enough.
With this understanding, life starts to feel amazing, not because you finally made it, but because the pressure to succeed has vanished.
