Is the Smell Of Success Musty?

For quite awhile, I have been kicking around the question of what does success actually smells like. I know the sweet smell of success is an expression. I also know it was a movie and a Broadway musical.

Despite the allusions, what does success really smell like?

Is it really sweet? Or is it sour? Is it like milk and honey? Is it like vodka? Or like chocolate?

Seriously, I used to think it smelled like fabric-softener dryer-sheets. However, since I have no idea why outside of a chemical imbalance, I never took that too seriously. Thus my search continued and I kept my nose open to other possibilities.

While visiting the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.on New Year's Day, I think I may have found the answer. The smell of success is musty.

I mean no disrespect to this wonderful museum. Truly, this was the best experience I have had at a museum and I am not an aviation or space follower. This place was amazing to the eye, informative and well organized. Yet it also had a distinct odor of mustiness.

I am no connoisseur of museums or how museums are designed. However I do not remember any museum smelling this way. My guess is because there are a significant number of artifacts of actual planes, missiles, and miscellaneous items out in the open and not behind glass.

This may sound distasteful to some, a museum that smells like someone's attic. Yet I found it to be intoxicating which added to the experience. It is one thing to see something behind glass. It is another to be so close to some of the aeronautical wonders of the last 100 years, that another sense is evoked, and the feeling of the success of these marvels sinks into your bones.

Smells invoke different memories for me, as well I believe they do for most people. I would guess that food smells are the most important catalyst in invoking memories. Perfumes of any source are probably second. However, I think mustiness has to be up there as well.

When was the last time you went through an old box of memorabilia and re-discovered pictures of your kids, a map from another country you visited, an amazing paper you wrote in school, or a thank you letter from someone at work? Furthermore does it not all smell a bit musty? When you smell that mustiness, are you not reminded of all the hard work you have put in, all the success you have obtained, and the belief you can still achieve greatness?

Am I wrong that musty is the smell of success? If so, what does success smell like to you?