If you’re not feeling particularly successful today, these words might sooth you.

In a world full of self help books and online courses exhorting us to be ‘successful’ I found this quote from this article by David Orr to be a healing balm. As Jiddu Krishnamurti put it, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” To be ‘successful’ in the global game of Monopoly and own Boardwalk and Park Place does not make the world better.

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful” people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.” – David Orr