What if success

was not a summit,

but a soil?

Not a gleaming trophy at the end of striving,

but the quiet alchemy of roots learning the dark

and loving it.

What if success was not the applause,

but the echo you become

after the performance ends?

Not becoming someone

but unbecoming the masks

until your breath rhymes with your being.

Not accumulation,

but devotion,

to a question that burns you into truth.

What if the ladder was an illusion,

and the real ascent

was inward,

spiraling like galaxies in a chest cavity?

What if success

was measured not in numbers

but in the number of times

you let go of needing to be measured?

Not arrival,

but presence.

Not control,

but surrender.

Not dominance,

but intimacy

with the now.

Maybe success

isn’t what you achieve,

but what you awaken.

So tell me,

what part of you is still trying to earn your existence?

And what would happen

if you stopped?