You may have the notion that if you’re happy, then you’re successful and that the two are intrinsically connected.

Or maybe you’re the kind of person who finds joy in achieving success.

The problem is that in many ways, those two ideas are entirely different.

Achievement vs happiness

If success is going to make you happy, you’ll be doing something completely different than the majority of people on this planet.

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People that go around saying “I’m successful” without a serious job and future are acting like spoiled children.

And we can all recognize a spoiled child when we see one.

I’ve never met anyone who’s ever said “I’m successful, look at all the toys I’ve got! I’m happy!”

And if they did, that child would be immediately removed from the home, forced to grow up and discover that the only things you have to be happy being yourself and your creativity.

It’s like that line from the movie The Invention of Lying.

I like to refer to success as playing god.

You create the world you want to exist in, you put the rules into place, and the rest of the world obeys.

You get to decide when it rains when it doesn’t, what people should wear, what food they should eat, and where they should go to sleep.

And the people in your world are supposed to work for you and obey you, all for your personal enjoyment.

I know, it sounds a little crazy

But what if you didn’t have this god-like power? What if you couldn’t control whether or not a rainstorm would happen?

What if you couldn’t decide what people were supposed to wear? What if you couldn’t decide if someone should sleep with you?

These are big, tough questions to ask yourself.

And all of them are an obvious violation of the natural law that tells us that we have only as much control as we have faith in.

Because when you have faith in your own intelligence, your own creativity, your own drive, and your own passion, then you will act by the law of attraction and thus, you will achieve success.

But when you’re like those spoiled children, in desperate search of the reward they think success brings, then you act in an absolute opposite fashion.

You have nothing to lose, and you have no faith in yourself or your world.

This is the ego. This is the spirit of the child.

It’s all about the fulfillment of desire.

The ability to ignore the laws of the universe.

To forget everything you know about creating reality.

It’s about chasing your own tail, because it’s easier than working hard, and you can never work hard enough.

And it’s easy to ignore the rules when you’re a kid because you don’t have a job. You don’t have bills to pay.

The problem comes when you’re in your 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s, and your fear of poverty keeps you from putting in the hard work it takes to become successful.

By the time you’re 30 or 40, you can’t say that you haven’t accomplished anything

You’ve played enough. You’ve had enough sex.

You’ve watched enough episodes of bad reality television.

And you’re starting to think that you’re going to be trapped in a life of poverty forever.

So you finally go out and get a job, get a second job, buy a house, get married, have children, and assume the roles that society has put in front of you, and instead of striving to work for your own fulfillment, you end up working for your next check.

The difference between those kids and you is that you didn’t see it coming.

You didn’t think it could be done. You figured you were doomed to be forever poor, and so you gave up.

And now you’re trapped.

But if you’re like those kids, and you get on that treadmill, and try to go as fast as you can, without any real appreciation for what you’re actually doing.

Then you will end up like those children, living a life of poverty, because you were too blinded by the need for immediate gratification to appreciate what you had.

Even when you’re successful, you won’t recognize your success, because you aren’t proud enough

Because success never feels as good as it feels when you’re waiting for the moment you can buy a new computer game, or take a few extra days off work so you can go to a movie.

And if you aren’t mentally aware enough to know that, and you are too greedy to save for retirement, you will end up living in the past, or the future, and never truly be satisfied.

There’s no easy answer.

There’s no “get rich quick” strategy for life.

But if you’re like those kids, don’t be surprised if you find yourself repeating your childhood mistakes.

And if you’re one of those children, don’t be surprised if you end up being the parent, because you should have realized what you were doing years ago.

Your adult life could be much worse. But not because you haven’t succeeded.

But because you haven’t been successful.