Success and Happiness

I think there are two things we are all looking for in life: success and happiness. Now most of us believe that in order to be happy, we have to be successful. We have to get into our top college choice to get a good degree, make our parents happy, get a good job, and then we’ll be successful which translates to happiness. Or maybe we have to be in a relationship and our relationship status determines whether we are happy or not. This concept of success=happiness is a HUGE assignment for me. What do I mean? This is something I have to work on. It’s not something to beat me down, but something I have to show up to. Each time, my ego desires a “title” or thinks “I’ll be happy when..”, I have to recognize the thought, accept it, let it go, then transform it. It’s hard work, but assignments are never easy:)!

My assignment this week: Not let titles define my success. So I didn’t win ‘Student Blog of the Year’. For a brief moment that really bothered me. My ego was telling “You are not a success”; “This defines who you are “; “You should’ve tried harder.” I sat on the couch and let these crazy, unrealistic thoughts, dominate my brain. But then I realized I define who I am, not the other way around. I am a success. I don’t need a title to tell me I am student blog of the year. If I believe I am, then I am. What I am trying to say is: I am Student Blog of the Year. I am an AMAZING BLOG. Failures are only failures, if you define them as such. I am not seeing my loss as a failure, but as an assignment to see how I can handle the ups and downs of my blog. Guess what? I am doing pretty frickin’ awesome post “loss”. I love that I didn’t win! Because it taught me much more valuable lessons then winning would have.

With this new self-mastery of not letting labels define me, I set out to meet Dr. Oz last night. I went to the David Lynch Foundation’s Changes Begins Within Event in NYC. Now most people would say it’s very unlikely to get a moment to talk and take a picture with Dr. Oz at an event that is sold out, however, not me. I didn’t know how I was going to meet Dr. Oz, but I knew if I was in the presence of ‘I Am’ then I would meet Oz. And I did. As soon as I got to the event, I just knew where to go. Don’t ask me how. I just knew. As I walked, I started to see the man myself. I was in awe-I had never been to a red-carpet event and it was pretty cool. So I waited at the end of the carpet, as Dr. Oz neared us, my dad, Jeffrey Zimmerman founder of ‘Body Harmonetics’, called “Mehmet!” (My dad worked with Dr. Oz years prior) And this is what I happened:

Dr. Oz: “Your dad is a great guy! He use to come to my office and fix me up.”

Me: “He’s good at that.”

Now most people would define that as a successful moment, and I couldn’t agree more. But if I hadn’t met Dr. Oz, I still would have been just as happy because success is not happiness, for me, happiness just is happiness from within. Lesson Learned!

Dr. Oz and I