Don’t be surprised by the title … I was almost sure that I knew this myself until I was put face to face with an unfortunate situation that showed me that it does not really matter to the community how I rate myself when it comes to success and failure because each member of this large society has his/her own definition that depends only on their own views and beliefs.

According to Dictionary.com, the definition of failure is: nonperformance of something due, required, or expected. In Wikipedia, it is: failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective.
In Wiktionary, it is:
1. State or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, opposite of success.
2. An object, person or endeavor in a state of failure or incapable of success.
3. Termination of the ability of an item to perform its required function.

I find the above definitions clear and straight forward, however; when I started interpreting them according to what people classify as a failure, it was a totally different scene and one that might not only be vague but also blurry and confusing. I mean why even bother understanding what the word or the status means when almost everyone will judge you from where they are standing. It is not like being overweight because there are standards for that, it is not like being black or white, blonde or brunette or redhead, it is not like being old or young … all these things are easily detected and do not need our personal input to decide one way or another despite that our perspective might change how we deal with these things, but still; we cannot miss them. But when it comes to failure or success for that matter; how can one judge or decide if someone has succeeded or failed?

I see success and failure as two faces of the same coin, but what I fail to see is how to define the boundaries of this coin. What are the standards for success? What are the things that one has to achieve in order to be classified as successful? Is it position or money or fame or what exactly?

Everyone thought that Marilyn Monroe was so successful and that her life was glamorous, but it turned out that she was miserable and her life ended mysteriously with a global inclination to believe that she committed suicide. Elvis Presley was a role model to almost every man in his generation and everyone dreamed of a life like his, but in reality he was miserable enough to become a drug addict and that eventually killed him. Princess Diana gave up everything to be happy. We can always look at celebrities as successful people who lead lives out of fairy tales, but the truth is that we do not know how happy with their lives they are, how content and satisfied they are and how successful they see themselves.

In our part of the world, people tend to be more emotional and judge others from that perspective. I have been thinking about this for some time now and found that no matter how hard a woman works and how high she aims and reaches, she will still be considered a failure because she did not achieve the ultimate goal in due time, which is getting married and having kids.

Now I would really consider this theory and might even believe it if the woman had full control over this particular issue, but she cannot decide who to marry and make it happen like men do, she has to wait for him to propose and hope for the best, so how does this count as a failure?

The other day; I was accused of being a failure by one of the closest people to me. Maybe she took my life and compared it to hers and when she found that I did not take her path and still did not marry and had a few kids that I was a failure. It did not matter that I had a better career and a more comfortable lifestyle, I was still a failure to her because I am not Mrs. Someone like she is.

To tell the truth; what she said was hurtful and sad and I did not expect it to get to me like it did, but what hurt the most is that I realized that if the ones who know me think this way; I should not be expecting much from those who don’t, and I decided that as long as I will classify myself as a failure or a success according to my own interpretation of the words or status and to hell with everyone who does not approve because at the end of the day, those who matter would not mind while those who mind, do not actually matter.