There is a story in Greek Mythology about a creature that is half man and half bull. It was trapped in a labyrinth by a great hero so that it would never see the light of day and never terrorize the innocent. The creature now lives inside the labyrinth and roams its narrow paths searching for a way out. Wanderers who dared enter the labyrinth faced the wrath of the monster and were never seen again. The creature was named Minotaur. This story is very old but it is one of my favorites. The thing I wanted to focus on through this story is the part about how the hero trapped a great monster inside the labyrinth. He was successful in his endeavor through hard work, his intelligence and willingness to take risks. The thing I want to focus on is “Success”.

What does success mean to us? How do we define success and what are the criteria to know if a person is successful or not? From what I can tell, success is a fleeting thing. It  always seems to be within our grasp but we never seem to grab it. Even if we do, it is never enough. The thing that make us successful in life are the small things and these are what we ignore. If anyone would ask a “successful” person how he/she became so successful, we will get the same answer. Some of them may say, “Do your best and never give up” or “Never take your eyes off the prize and work towards it” or “Do not take shortcuts and never cheat”. Others may give you quotes like, “Honest work and smart work will never fail you” or “Honesty is the best policy” or “Success is like a mountain. You cannot climb it without falling once or twice.” These are some of the things I have heard in my life. The thing that I noticed in every one of them is that we must “work” to achieve our goals and never take shortcuts.

We all believe that the road to success is difficult but straight. This never seems to be the case. The road to success is a labyrinth, namely Minotaur's labyrinth. It is filled with hardships, narrow paths, difficult choices and we never seem to reach the goal even if we do everything right. The reason I say that it is a labyrinth is that, we start out with good intension and unshakable determination but after a while we seem to forget why we entered the labyrinth in the first place. The distraction and chaos lead us astray. All our determination disappears and we lose focus of what we need to do next. We forget our objective and before you know it, we get attacked by the minotaur.

The labyrinth can be avoided if we can follow one simple task which is listening. We can listen to the advice and experience of our seniors and elders. Listening can make you aware of the risks of doing any task and we can avoid hardships.

If you want to reach a big goal, try to create milestones as you go along. This will make the task seem less difficult. With each new milestone you can work your way towards your goal. Each milestone can be a stepping stone towards bigger and better things. With this in mind, we also need to be patient. Patience is the key to everything and rushing head first into things never gives you anything but a headache.

I am not trying to preach about the ways of how to be successful. I am probably the last person to tell a person about how to be successful but what I can say for sure is that success comes to those who use all of their senses and their wits to achieve a goal.