When I was a child, I thought that happiness was success, and pursuing happiness was attaining success. Now I’ve figured out why I misunderstood the difference between the two words. Many people in China define success as the attainment of wealth or prominence, which they suppose brings happiness. Unfortunately, this notion was subconsciously injected into my mind.
In my perspective, success is the achievement of goals and happiness is the state of contentment. Those who ask for less can more easily obtain happiness. Therefore achieving wealth or fame is insufficient to obtaining happiness. People can obtain happiness from success by achieving their goals even though sometimes it results in other sorts of unhappiness or pains from its consequences. Wealth and fame are just the consequence of some kinds of success. Furthermore, I think the first priority in life is to pursue happiness and if success is the result of your happiness, then you can strive for it. Even if one fails unexpectedly, he or she can still have a happy life, due to other sources of happiness.
Original post: http://blog.josephjctang.com/2013-09/happiness-and-success/