This week has seen prospective candidates in no doubt whether they have succeeded or failed in their attempts to seek election for government. But how do we measure success in our own lives?
Many people have read 'The Midnight Library' by Matt Haig which I am discussing on BBC Radio Suffolk this week. It's topped the bestseller charts as hardback, paperback and now also as audiobook. This interesting and enjoyable story has much to say about regret and achievements, success and failure in life, and its message resonated with me.
"Too often our view of success is about some external idea of achievement," says Nora, the central character as she looks back on her life, considering what she believes were missed opportunities and poor decisions. Her life could have been about winning medals, having a family, earning well and being highly regarded in a career. But, she concludes "success isn't something you measure, and life isn't a race you can win."
There is a false assumption that "if we simply achieve more, the feeling of success will follow," says presenter and author Simon Sinek in his book 'Start With Why', which I describe below. "It rarely does...Achievement is something you reach or attain, like a goal. Success, in contrast, is a feeling or a state of being...Success comes when we wake up every day in that never-ending pursuit of WHY we do WHAT we do."
He goes on to describe how the best businesses and most inspirational entrepreneurs - companies like Apple, pioneers like the Wright brothers, and leaders like Martin Luther King - have all 'started with why'.
These are very different books, but both have a great deal to ponder about motivation, purpose and fulfilment.
There'll be other suggestions for reading matter in the second series of the BBC book programme 'Between the Covers' which returns tomorrow at 7.30pm. One of the guests is Griff Rhys Jones, who has visited us in Woodbridge a number of times. You can read more about his connection to Suffolk here. Griff used to present his own book programme many years ago, called 'Bookworm' I think, which I remember very fondly!
Thank you for reading.