What is your definition of success? Does it represent material possessions like a big house, expensive car, designer jewelry and the accessory of the decade - the smartphone? Don't get me wrong! None of these are in any way bad. In fact, they do represent a major facet of success. It all depends on how you measure success. However, the deeper, more introspective questions to ask yourself is whether these are all that are important to live a good life. Does happiness, inner peace of mind, pursuit of a passion, taking up a cause do not figure in your life at all? Or are they swept away in the flurry of activity that modern day life personifies? Or are they mere fairy tales and have no place in reality? Think about it. I am by no means suggesting that you have not made these more philosophical quests in your mind if not in your life. All I am posing as a question is whether in the scheme of things that is your life do they have a place of priority.

The waters get muddied quite a bit when you consider that life itself does not demand anything of the individual. It is a determination that you have to make for yourself and then go after it. It is all fine if you go through life without getting out of your comfort zone or not pursuing more esoteric goals. It is your life. However, the key question to pose is whether you want to live a legacy greater than just taking care of your daily needs and flitting through life like a spectator.
Are you then the Pilot or just a passenger?

In management circles there is a cliched expression called fire fighting. Fire fighting is all about putting out fires both real and imagined. It is an ongoing process that deals with the incessant niggles that crop up at work. Life is no different. It is such a perennial problem spinning machine that you think you need to spend a majority of your time solving them day to day - you want to put out those fires, in other words. But each time you put out just the fire, you have lost an opportunity to tackle the fire environment itself. Systems thinking on the other hand postulates that you take a holistic approach to problem solving - going after the cause. What is causing the fires? How can I do something to the cause? But life is extremely cunning. It ensures that you have a finite time (who can hope to control that!)  within which to do whatever you need to do. If you did systems thinking you are likely to put an end to the cause of many fires (thereby releasing some time to yourself for other pursuits) and if you did fire fighting, you will do that all your life. You see, the problem with fire fighting is there is no end in sight. You can live an entire life just fire fighting.

This is where comfort zones come in. Once you decide to breach that cocoon of comfort and stick your neck out, you are laying the foundation for systems thinking. It is like playing golf. Nobody is competing with you, you just have to compete with yourself and raise the bar each time. Systems thinking also subscribes to the motivation that success is a journey and not a destination.
Buddha himself said:"There is no way to happiness, Happiness is the way!"
You could become successful at small things but things that matter to you, which are after your own heart, your passions. The payback for this is happiness and that is priceless. No material possession can hope to equal that in value nor equate that to mere success.

Value of money is a principle that shows that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow and so on. Time is pretty much the same. In fact, time is a huge factor in the value of money principle. The moments that you have let gone in time will not return and that leaves less moments in the future to use up. The zen principle suggests (among various other things) that you should live in the moment. The present is a gift, that is why it is called thus said somebody. You cannot change the past but you can certainly learn to savor the current moment, the present. It will bring with it inner peace of mind and tranquility both of which are precious to you.

Your dreams are vicarious most times. As the late Steve Jobs said: "Your time is short. Do not live somebody else's dreams." And he hit the nail on its head. You often are living out either the dream of a parent, an elder sibling. a respected teacher or a best friend. Mind you, there is nothing wrong in heeding all these individuals of influence in your lives. After all, no man is an island. But the almost insurmountable difficulty is that it is not your own dream. You have not felt it in your bones, experienced its power to galvanize you from inertia, not had your heart thudding in your chest with excitement and anticipation. When a dream loses all of those singular, uplifting emotions, it loses its magic. You simply do not own it.

The Key Conversion factor
So, which one of your dreams which you have been bequeathed and is not your own would you love to convert into a living, breathing, adrenalin pumping date with destiny to look forward to? 

The late Stephen Covey in his all-time best selling 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book said:"To Live, Love and leave a Legacy behind," was paramount.