Interesting People.

The other day I met the most interesting man on the train to York, I still can't get over what a successful life he'd had.
The strange experience began on my way to York- it was a busy train so I was forced to take whatever seat I could get. Thankfully, the man next to the free seat was very friendly.
For a while we just sat minding our own business, however, we soon entered a very long but intriguing conversation.

This man, around 80 or more I would say, ended up telling me his life story, which was amazing. At 18, he signed up to the Navy (this was during WW2). He quickly explained that you could either volunteer to sign up and have the choice of which force you went into, or be taken and signed up and not have the option. So he volunteered, and was in the Navy for 7 years.After this, he became a teacher for 15 years or so,and enjoyed it. However, he told me that he had "always had a bee in [his] bonnet" and wanted to work on a nature reserve. After he had got bored of teaching, he decided to follow this bee and go into the nature reserve buisness. After trying to get a job form many reserves, he wrote a letter to (what he called) English Nature. I realise now that it must have been the National Trust or something like that, anyhow, they replied in a form of a 'polite' letter saying that thankyou but he was not the sort of person that they employed.
Still reading? Good, cause this is where it gets interesting.
After failing to secure a job working for a nature reserve, he managed to somehow get a piece of land 5 miles long, from a local council. He turned it into a nature reserve himself, for many years enjoyed lecturing people about the reserve and showing groups of children the nature that evolved. He even wrote a book about the nature reserve.
One day, the same company that had declined his application wrote to him asking him if they could quote his book when they were writing their own official book!
With a wife and three 'successful' children, (one with a tudor house in sussex and a second house in france, and one who makes more in a day than his father ever made in a year), I wondered how this man had managed such a life? I also wondered what 'success' actually is? Is it all these things, or should it simply be how happy you are?