For much of my life, success seemed relatively straightforward to identify. It had institutions, examinations, job titles, salaries, professional networks, and recognizable milestones. If you studied at a respected college, entered a competitive management institute, worked for a prestigious organization, and kept progressing professionally, you were doing reasonably well by the standards society had taught you to recognize.
I pursued several of those milestones. I studied commerce at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, worked at EY, and later completed my MBA at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies. These were real achievements. I don't need to diminish them just because my understanding of success has evolved.
But accomplishment did not permanently settle the question of whether I was successful. There was always another comparison available: another institution, another salary, another professional milestone, another person whose life seemed to be advancing faster. The reference group could change more quickly than the underlying reality of my life.
Was I evaluating my circumstances, or participating in a competition whose finish line moved every time I approached it?
What a résumé cannot tell you
A successful life looks different depending on who is evaluating it. To an employer, success might mean competence and measurable results. To an entrepreneur, it might mean building something people willingly pay for. To a researcher, it might mean producing knowledge that survives criticism. To someone in pain, an ordinary day with less suffering may be a major victory.
These definitions need not contradict one another. They measure different dimensions of experience. The mistake is allowing one dimension to impersonate the whole. Income matters, and so do health, freedom, relationships, curiosity, and the capacity to enjoy an unremarkable Tuesday.
The pleasure of making things
In 2026, I found myself experimenting with perfumery, writing essays, developing ideas about organizational behavior, and learning to build websites. None of these activities guaranteed recognition. Most began without a large audience, an established business model, or any assurance that anyone would care.
Yet something surprising happened: I enjoyed the process. A fragrance formulation could become an experiment in memory and emotion. A psychological question could become an essay. An essay could become a website. A website could become an experience another person could explore. The distance between imagining something and making it available to the world began shrinking.
I still enjoyed attention. I still wondered what recognition might feel like. I still entertained the possibility that my work might become widely known. But I was also beginning to experience something that applause alone could not supply: satisfaction from creating.
I have not become indifferent to fame
It would be dishonest to claim that I have transcended the desire to be recognized. Recognition can distribute useful ideas, attract collaborators, open doors, and help sustain creative work. Money can provide security and autonomy. Professional reputation can reflect genuine competence. None of these is inherently shallow.
But visibility is not the same as value. Someone can be widely known without making a meaningful contribution, while someone else can make an extraordinary contribution in relative obscurity. Even deserved fame cannot guarantee happiness, belonging, or freedom from suffering.
Perhaps the question isn't whether fame is good or bad. It's what we expect fame to accomplish on our behalf.
My understanding of success is still evolving. I have not arrived at a final philosophy, and I hope I never confuse a moment of clarity with permanent enlightenment. I still want to accomplish things. I still want my work to matter. I would enjoy recognition if it came. But I am increasingly unwilling to treat its absence as evidence of an unsuccessful life.
02 / An interactive thought experiment
Success depends on who's asking.
Try changing the observer. The meaning of success changes too. None of these lenses can measure an entire human life.
THE CREATOR'S LENS
Did I make something meaningful?
Craft, originality, usefulness, and the pleasure of bringing an idea into existence.
03 / An evolving definition
Not a ladder. A changing landscape.
Not a claim that every stage was better than the last, but a record of how different forms of value became visible.
FOUNDATIONS
Proof through institutions
Education, credentials, employment, and learning the rules of conventional achievement.
QUESTIONING
Proof wasn't peace
Recognizing that comparison can continue even after genuine accomplishments.
OCTOBER 2026
Creation before applause
Essays, experiments, fragrances, websites, and the immediate joy of making things.
FUTURE · UNKNOWN
Meaning without certainty
Perhaps wider recognition. Perhaps a quieter life. Either deserves examination on its own terms.
04 / Sealed in spirit, open to everyone
Dear Sahil, October 2031.
I don't know whether you became famous.
Perhaps your writing reached a large audience. Perhaps your work in education or behavioral research developed into something useful. Perhaps House of Venus became a business. Perhaps you created things in 2027 that I cannot even imagine today.
Or perhaps you remained relatively unknown, continued working with your family, built a few meaningful projects, made friends, loved people, read books, and enjoyed the freedom to investigate whatever captured your curiosity.
I hope you can appreciate either life on its own merits.
Please remember that before any recognition you may or may not have received, there was already a person living a life. There were conversations, experiments, family jokes, difficult days, moments of curiosity, and the occasional ridiculous excitement of discovering that a website could be built in an afternoon.
Those experiences were not merely preparation for a more important future. They were life itself.
And if your understanding of success has changed again, that's perfectly acceptable. You aren't required to remain loyal to the conclusions of a 31-year-old man writing from New Delhi in October 2026.
You are allowed to become someone your younger self could not yet imagine.
With curiosity,
Sahil
19 October 2026
05 / Your turn
What does success mean to you today?
Not what it meant at seventeen. Not what someone else expects. Today.
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06 / A conversation, not a conclusion
What would you like to say to Sahil?
Maybe you disagree with something here. Maybe your definition of success has changed, too. Maybe you have a story, a question, a correction, or simply a thought worth sharing.
You don't need an impressive résumé, a grand revelation, or a perfectly composed message. A few honest sentences are enough.
This is an invitation to conversation, not a promise of an immediate reply.
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07 / Beyond this page
One life. Many experiments.
Follow the ideas, projects, and unfinished questions behind this reflection.