Why I Stopped Chasing the Conventional Definition of Success

My father worked extremely hard throughout his life. He was a doctor, deeply committed to his profession, and taking leave was rare. Holidays were rarer still.

Like many people of his generation, a lot of life was quietly assigned to a future phase called “after retirement”. We will travel then, relax then, finally do the things there was never enough time for.

A few years after he retired, his health deteriorated severely. Parkinson-Plus gradually took away his mobility, voice and independence. Watching that happen changed something in me. My father had built a successful career and contributed enormously through his work, but his experience made one question very difficult for me to ignore: what exactly are we postponing life for?

The bargain I stopped finding attractive

For much of my own career, I was making a version of the same bargain: work harder now, build security now, and make time for the rest later.

There is nothing irrational about sacrificing something today for a better tomorrow. Much of adult life works that way. Financial security matters, responsibilities are real, and meaningful work can be deeply satisfying.

What began to trouble me was the possibility that “later” could become a permanent holding area for everything that did not fit into the working week: health, family, friends, travel, rest, curiosity and sometimes simply doing nothing useful for an afternoon.

I did not want retirement, or some future career milestone, to become the point at which I finally gave myself permission to live differently.

Success was easy to recognise

The conventional scorecard had always been clear enough: study well, build a good career, earn more, take on bigger responsibilities, get better titles, become successful.

I spent more than two decades doing exactly that, and I enjoyed much of the journey. Achievement gave me opportunities, confidence, learning and financial freedom. I am not trying to rewrite my career as a mistake simply because I now see success differently.

What I began questioning was the authority I had given that scorecard.

It was remarkably easy to know whether I was moving ahead professionally. There was always another role, a larger responsibility, a higher income or some visible marker of progress. And comparison could expand the game further. You earn ₹50 lakh a year and feel rather pleased with yourself until you discover that Sharma ji ka beta earns ₹80 lakh. Apparently, the annual appraisal has now been outsourced to the neighbourhood.

The problem was not that ambition kept producing new possibilities. The problem was that I had rarely stopped to ask whether career progress should remain the main way I measured how well my life was going.

Then “later” started feeling less certain

Over the next few years, several people I knew died: friends, former colleagues and relatives. Some were in their forties. They had different medical histories and died in very different circumstances, so I cannot draw one neat health lesson from what happened to them.

What changed was my relationship with time. “Later” began to feel less like a plan and more like an assumption. A plan is something we can work towards; an assumption is something we quietly expect life to honour.

I had spent years behaving as though there would always be another season in which I could rebalance things: after the next promotion, the next quarter, the children’s exams, the loan or the next financial milestone.

But life does not sign that contract.

The question was no longer whether ambition was good or bad. It was whether I wanted to keep assigning too much of life to a future that I was treating as guaranteed.

What I was really changing

For a while, I thought I was stepping away from ambition. I do not think that is quite right.

I still like learning, building, solving difficult problems and doing work that feels useful. I still care about financial independence, and I still enjoy achievement.

I did not stop wanting to succeed. I stopped wanting career success to have the final say on what success meant.

I no longer wanted work to decide, by default, how much time remained for my health, relationships, freedom and ordinary enjoyment of life. Those things did not need to defeat ambition; they needed a seat at the table before ambition consumed all the chairs.

That shift is also one reason I eventually changed direction professionally. The change did not begin with a new job title or a carefully designed second-career plan. It began with a more personal question about what I wanted the next twenty years to contain.

A different question

Earlier, I often thought about how successful I could become. These days, I am more interested in asking how well I can live.

Can I remain physically and mentally well enough to enjoy the life I am building? Can I have unhurried time with people I care about, continue learning, contribute usefully and do meaningful work without allowing work to occupy every available corner? Can I have enough financial freedom without spending my entire life pursuing more?

I have not figured out all the answers, and I doubt there is one permanent formula. What I do know is that I no longer want to wait for some grand future in which everything is finally sorted before I enjoy an ordinary Tuesday.

For years, success was mostly about how far I could go. My question now is whether I like the life I am living while I am getting there.

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