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success isn't the same as happiness. That's why the words are not one and the same.
What does the word success mean exactly? Success at what?
Success comes from having goals and achieving them, whatever they may be. They will be different for everyone, so I can't say what I could say is success to anyone else.
Generalized success in my personal life, to me would mean feeling that I have a good base of dependable and loyal friends, and an SO who I can trust implicitly and whose company I enjoy 99% of the time. Also, the emotional support of my family.
Generalized success in my professional life, to me would mean a job where I am not exploited, that I thoroughly enjoy, where there is flexibility, dynamics, and creativity. Also, there has to be a pleasant work environment. The pay check allows me to live comfortably and engage in my favourite hobbies, and to provide for my family.
That's it. I have no idea if I'd be happy with no money. That would mean a total adjustment of my life up to the present, and I can't say what I'd wish for if I was in that position. The same goes for if I had bundles of it. Would I be happier than I am now? I don't know because I've never been there.
Success can't be considered proportional to the amount of money one has, that is obvious. I'm not sure it can be proportional to the amount of happiness you feel either. Either you feel successful or you don't. Sometimes the highest achievers aren't happy. When I say the highest achievers, I don't mean millionaires, I mean people who set goals and are able to attain them quite often. They are successful at achieving their goals, but whether they are happy or not depends on their state of mind in that moment, I'd say.
Halx put it well, but I'm not sure how doing what you want automatically excludes money/possessions.
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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
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