I used to believe that success was defined by achievement. I admired those who achieved degrees and titles because those things seemed to be what people celebrated.
The older I get, the more I have come to realize how no achievement matters if you think in terms of scarcity. If you believe that everything is a competition and everyone threatens your success, you will spend your life manipulating and strategizing to keep people down.
Those who make it their life’s work to elevate themselves by stepping on others might succeed in obtaining power and status but they’ll eventually find themselves in a lonely existence.
Because in the end, titles fall away and power diminishes and what is left is the person you are — not the position or degree you’ve achieved. What becomes most important is the way you have treated people along the way.
So perhaps our greatest achievements and the legacy we leave lies in what we give instead of what we take.
Kindness matters.