A person who is always happy, succeeds.—Sefer Hamiddos, The Book of Attributes (The Aleph-Bet Book)
People believe that when they become “successful”, then they’ll be happy.
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov says the opposite is true. Being joyful, encouraging yourself to be happy, looking for things to feel positive about—these are what lead to success.
If we look at successful people, some are happy, many are not. That’s proof that success does not necessarily lead to happiness.
But if we look at happy people, most of us will be able to recognize that they indeed are truly successful. If you ask a happy person if she’s a success, she’ll say yes. She may qualify it a bit to make it more palatable to others and say that she may not be successful in the eyes of the world, but she feels successful and lives her life deeply believing in herself.
Unhappy people may achieve a measure of worldly success, but it doesn’t mean they are happy. Happy people succeed at life.
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