By Atiq Raja
Success wears many masks. For the banker in the glass tower, it’s the seven-figure bonus that buys a yacht he rarely sails. For the influencer, it’s the viral post that swells the follower count but hollows the soul. Power, comfort, recognition—these glitter like fool’s gold, promising everything until you hold them close and feel the chill. History, though, tells a truer tale: the deepest, most enduring triumphs aren’t snatched from the peak of ambition’s ladder. They bloom from purpose, that quiet north star whispering why you’re climbing at all.
Picture two climbers scaling Everest. One races for the summit photo, Instagram glory, the sponsor cheques. He summits, descends, and a year later? Emptiness gnaws. The other pauses amid the ice storms, driven by a vow to map uncharted crevices for future rescuers. His success isn’t a flag planted; it’s lives saved down the line. Purpose infuses the grind with gravity, turning sweat into significance. When it’s your compass, success deepens—rooted not in fleeting highs but in a journey that sustains through storms.
We’ve all chased society’s script at some point. That corner office, the sleek car, the house with the white picket fence. I remember a friend, let’s call her Sara, who clawed her way to tech executive by 35. Salaries soared, titles dazzled, but late nights found her staring at spreadsheets, heart echoing with that nagging whisper: “Is this it?” Chasing external markers left her adrift, talented but unmoored. Purpose-driven success flips the script. It marries your raw talents—say, your knack for storytelling—with passions that ignite you and values that anchor your days. Work morphs from drudgery to devotion; ambition from ego to echo, rippling outward.
No story captures this better than Viktor Frankl’s. An Austrian neurologist, Frankl entered Auschwitz not as a victim but as an observer of the human spirit’s frayed edges. His parents, brother, pregnant wife—all vanished into the camps’ maw. Amid barbed wire and skeletal despair, where hope curdled into surrender, Frankl spotted a pattern. Prisoners clutching a fragile “why”—a child to cradle post-war, a manuscript to pen, a love to reclaim—endured the unimaginable “how.” Frankl’s own why? To chronicle these insights on resilience, to prove meaning persists even in hell. He survived, scribbled Man’s Search for Meaning on scraps, and unleashed a global balm. “He who has a why to live,” he wrote, “can bear almost any how.” Frankl didn’t summit success; purpose hauled him through the abyss, his legacy touching millions who never smelled camp smoke.
Purpose wields superpowers precisely because it roots deep. It grants clarity, slicing through life’s fog: why this job, this fight, this dawn? Resilience follows—setbacks sting less when your fire burns from within, not applause. Consistency glues it all; you’re in for the marathon because every step echoes your core. And impact? It snowballs. You’re not just building; you’re bridging, lifting others as you rise. Think of Malala Yousafzai, shot for championing girls’ education, or Elon Musk’s dogged Mars dream—purpose propels them beyond personal wins into world-shaping waves.
This alchemy yields fulfilment that ambition alone can’t touch. The corner-office climber retires rich but restless, tallying zeros over memories. The purpose-seeker? They recount lives sparked, injustices toppled, quiet kindnesses rippling generations hence. At life’s ledger’s end, no one cradles bank statements. We cherish touches left on souls, differences dared, purposes pursued. Ambition dazzles crowds; purpose reshapes realms.
His “success” wasn’t medals—it was those boys, now fathers, crediting him for their spine. Or consider a nurse friend amid COVID’s fury: purpose in each IV drip, each bedside vigil, outshining any salary. When you latch onto your purpose and pour in, career transcends to calling, goals to gospel. It doesn’t erase hurdles—bills bite, critics jeer—but it arms you with meaning that money can’t buy. In a world flogging hustle porn and highlight reels, purpose is rebellion. It bids you pause, dig inward, emerge aligned. Chase wealth, and it slips like sand. Chase purpose, and success chases you—profound, enduring, alive. Frankl knew: in suffering’s forge or fortune’s feast, the why endures. Find yours. Climb not just high, but true. That’s the summit worth summiting.
(The writer is a rights activist and CEO of AR Trainings and Consultancy, with degrees in Political Science and English Literature, can be reached at editorial@metro-morning.com)
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