How to Successfully “Fail” and Win at Life

When we are young, we’re often asked what we want to be when we grow up; this question, however, rarely manifests itself into reality. Most of the time for the better. We grow up, we learn about ourselves and the world, and we discover that the world has more to offer than our five-year-old selves could comprehend. Sometimes with a little bravery, we chase our dreams through hard work and find the success we dreamed of, but often we trek down paths that looked beautiful but leave us feeling unfulfilled and unhappy.

As someone in the thick of trying to figure out what to do with my life and where I’m headed, I find myself looking to others that have “got it figured out” per se. And as it turns out, most of them don’t live luxurious lives and aren’t household names. For me, it’s the people that have managed to find happiness and used that success to fuel others. One of these people appeared in my life when I least expected it – on a bus in Syracuse, New York.

This is Mickey Mahan, also known as The Flying Busman. He’s a Centro bus driver at Syracuse University that I met three years ago, and without a doubt, the happiest and most successful person I know. He, like countless others, followed the traditional life path of going to college, graduate school and proceeding to begin a career in that same field. And you know what? He hated it. So much so, that he became a bus driver until he could get his shit together and find another path to follow. The crazy part? He loved it. Mickey has been a bus driver for almost thirty years now and will tell anyone it was the best decision he could have ever made. He reads poetry every morning, sings the bus stop names and makes unforgettable connections with riders. He transforms a morning commute to an 8 a.m. college class into a daily inspirational experience.

Mickey’s life story, along with his badass mustache, has served as a daily reminder to me that the only uniform thing about success is happiness and that the value of being happy goes highly under-appreciated. When you base your success on your pure, unadulterated happiness, it inspires others to do the same. I’m not the only student that has been influenced by the contagious nature of Mickey’s success; this video is one of the many films that have been made to tell the tale of the most famed bus driver in Syracuse.

I’m sure the story of a college graduate becoming a bus driver would be considered a failure to some outsiders, but even just a short look into Mickey’s life proves he’s been victorious and continues to thrive by spreading positivity and art with everyone he meets. He’s a reminder to me that we’ve got to keep on trucking, no matter the circumstances, until we find that thing that fuels our fire.