What is success.

He need so much to succeed!! But what is success. How do we as individuals define success when, being individuals our success should be tailored to who we are. And who we are is a reflection of our experience which by any measure of common sense is not common.
The herd tells us this and that. Our upbringing lays it heavy hand on us. Our parents generation has much to say and yet it is our choice.
To most people success is laced with having a lot of money since as they say "money makes the world go round" but often the criteria of needing to have money also lends itself to spending an inordinate amount of time accruing the stuff and having got it finding it difficult to let go. The sheer time and energy earning a lot of it means that you can't switch off and are forever talking about it or measuring it as if it were some sort of yard stick.
Success must surely come from gaining the respect of others not because you are generous at the bar but because people enjoy your company for what it is. 
Success can come from giving, not receiving, from being out there driving a 'combi' for the old peoples home or visiting strangers alone in hospital. Out in all weathers, shaking the tin to get in the coffers to rebuild a shelter or provide funds for the upkeep of a club.
Success can mean being self contained, having few regrets but being alert to what is happening around you and finding life in general, interesting.
Success can mean starting a new interest, a new hobby. It can be in keeping fit or it might be in exploring a book.
Success comes in all guises and we should never knock another persons definition of success.
Success is like slowly sipping hot sweet tea on a cold day. The steam clouds your glasses as the hot rim of the cup slightly burns the lips and the hot liquid burns a hole through to your chest.
Success is recognising that good literature has, like music a way of astounding the quiet conventional person into wide eyed pleasure at the revelation that not only are you still alive but that what ever you had just read or listened to confirmed it. 
Success is recognising that truth is to be found all around but that we often do not have the eyes or the tranquillity within us to to see. It takes a great author to weave his spell with words, hyperbole and  embellishment to bring us to a truth that has been lurking under the surface of our minds.
That is my measure of success and I will go happily to my grave contending it !!