KidSpirit

Success Beyond Materialism

FulfillmentGlobal Beat

The 21st century: the era in which money is ‘‘a must’’ to have a successful life, yet, not for everybody. The definition of success is as vast as the universe, because it differs between one person and another, especially between young and older people.

For instance, older people from my country tend to have a simple and sort of pre-programmed definition: have a job in which they can earn a lot of money so they can buy or build a lovely house, have a loving family with at least two kids, and spend the rest of their days together as long as possible. Simple right?

But, as a teenager, I don’t agree with that vision. To me, success is a lot more complex than that. Sometimes the word ‘‘achievement’’ appears in my head after getting out of bed, sometimes it appears after not embarrassing myself by saying ‘’Hi!’’ to someone I barely remember, or when I recall that person’s name after a while. I also feel accomplished after sharing my knowledge on human rights with my high school classmates, thanks to the years I’ve spent as an activist and the outdated education system.

My point is, defining success implies a lot of things: the place where you live, the quality of life in that place, the way people around you, especially your relatives, interact with you through the years. Most of the time, those factors trace the path for the majority of a community’s inhabitants, which certainly determines the kind of life that they’ll have.

Considering all of this, we, as people living in the same world, have to try our best to create the methods or resources to give everyone the same opportunities to be successful as everyone else (in regard to any of the factors that I mentioned above).

Gustavo Ramos is a 17-year-old from Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay. He is interested in the environment, video games, politics, cooking, science fiction, chemistry, physics, and psychology and its importance in daily life.

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Art by Jaden Flach, Brooklyn

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Art by Jaden Flach, Brooklyn