Happiness and success mean many different things to different people. According to BBG Communications, many equate success with having a high income career and happiness with owning many expensive possessions. Others see happiness and success as hinging on the accomplishment of a worthwhile purpose or goal with one’s life while completely disregarding material wealth. I fall into the latter category. I may have, one day, a prestigious career, an exorbitant salary, and a mansion to live in, but if I have not accomplished anything of lasting worth then I will see my life as having been lived without a purpose.

Thus to me, happiness and success is equivalent with purpose. A life without purpose is one where a person drifts despairingly along in an absurdist world where every event and relationship is meaningless and utterly worthless. A person without purpose realizes at the end of the rat race that he accomplished absolutely nothing overall. Any money he has earned will go to his children as well as all of his possessions. He will not be able to enjoy them once he is dead, and who knows how his descendants will use his hard-earned money? He will leave this world leaving nothing behind him save some money, some memories, and a tombstone. It seems that the world has played a very cruel joke on this person indeed.

A person’s life lived with a purpose, however, is a very different story. Purpose adds meaning to a life. That person will march determinedly along, actively working towards the goal. A person with purpose may very well achieve material wealth as well, but when his body fails him, he will leave a legacy behind. When prostrate on his deathbed, he will be able to say that he stood in the defense of liberty or that he broke poverty’s iron grip on a few more destitute people and delivered them to hope once more. Whatever cause he devoted his life to, if achieved, he will be satisfied in its fulfillment.

The most important choice a person can make to be both successful and happy is to choose to serve others in working toward something worthwhile to the world than to serve oneself in the pursuit of material gain. To choose service is to choose a life of purpose and meaning. While many believe that happiness and success comes only through monetary gain, this author is thoroughly convinced that purpose and service is the only way to make life worth living. How does this author declare that to the world? By choosing purpose.