What Is Success?

One might wonder whether the question is about success in a particular moment or endeavor, or if we should be imagining a successful life overall.  For individual goals, the obvious definition would be achieving the goal.  For all a lifetime, maybe achieving more goals than experiencing failures is a close enough description.  We might accept that a successful person is one who is satisfied; is you constantly feel something lacking, how can you think of yourself as successful?  This could naturally produce situations in which we see people we would normally consider to be successful, such as the wealthy or famous or respected, as unsuccessful because they are not happy with their situations.  Also, people who would be judged as failures by most may be completely satisfied with their lot - not wishing for a bigger house, more prestigious job, or cooler clothes - and therefore successful people.  Success can leave a hole in your life.  Once you complete one task, you have to find another one; we cannot coast along on the gains of one moment.  Some people may experience "fear of success" for this reason.  Humans are not big fans of change, and a new task, goal or strategy almost certainly requires us to change our lifestyle or at least some elements of it.  If we keep working at one task all our lives, we can avoid all but the most pressing changes.  We cannot really disappoint, because we have not built any expectations.  Success is a sense of accomplishment, of internal value, of security for the future.  Greater detail runs the risk of rendering the term meaningless to most people in most circumstances.

The Source said her inspiration came when watching the movie "Birdman" and wondering about the shelf-life of success.  She agreed completely with the writing by the Leader and the True Philosopher, saying she had little to add to the discussion at the moment, just emphasizing the role of failure on the path to success and the personalness of true success.  She later spoke of opportunities for success being necessary to begin with, but also the individual effort put into the process.  Every move should be a step on the path to a goal, and every goal a step on a larger path; we should gain useful experience by seeking success and both the journey and the result should add value, not just to our own lives, but to society as a whole. 

The True Philosopher agreed that success can only be measured by an individual for that individual's own circumstances, and also mentioned the dangers of taking success too seriously.  People who reach their goals easily or often can lose track of reality.  He also pointed out the fear entwined with success, since expectations build afterwards and a single mistake can lead to disaster.  As he mentioned in his article, we attach a certain amount of morality to the idea of success, connecting it with what we consider to be "good" or "proper" goals to be reached for.  The cycle of success and failure is another manifestation of the yin-yang concept.

The Deep Thinker likened the concept to finding meaning in our lives and told us that it was a useful way to enforce shared values.  However, he also thought that one cannot be successful without knowing who one is.  We can only measure our own achievements, not put value on those of others.  External measures of success are "like chasing ghosts".  For him, while effort should be put into our accomplishments, it should be joyous effort.  If the work becomes a burden, this is not the right track to success.  We should each follow our own natures and hearts, and keep in mind that many successful people have been anonymous, but have achieved success through their rich and meaningful lives.  Contentment is the ultimate success, and failures on the way to contentment do not really matter as long as one arrives at the goal in the end.

The Actress scoffed a little at the mentions of plans, saying success was based mainly on luck.  Also, the sweetest success is that which comes as a surprise.  An Occasional Participant disagreed, saying success by chance would not last at all.  She said too, that the greatest success stories are the result of a lot of hard work, but are often surrounded by a fluffy cloud of lies, especially with regard to the emotional state of the person involved.  She pointed to many celebrities and their emotional problems, which have often led to substance abuse.

The Leader poked around at a number of ideas, including the attractions and unpleasant surprises in achieving our goals, and in his first contribution agreed with the Actress about chance - to a point.  While much success depends on being the right place at the right time, there is also the influence of our past experiences that tells us when and where to look.  He groused about the limits on opportunities in a society that pushes everyone so hard to succeed, while deliberately making it impossible for some to do so.  He asked why we have particular goals, implying that what we consider worthwhile is heavily influenced by information we receive from our environment rather than our own "nature".  He first said that success does not equal happiness, although it can be a tool towards achieving it, but later wondered if there was a deeper connection between the two, or if the two circumstances merely produce the same chemicals in the brain.  He answered himself, supposing that the answer was the latter, since a failure does not necessarily mean lack of happiness.  Another Infrequent Participant connected success to envy, since that can provide the motivation we need to put out the effort to succeed, which the Leader did not argue with.  He did warn, though, that too much envy would only be destructive, so our survival tools still need to be kept under supervision.

The Seeker of Happiness also took up the cause of knowing oneself, and also mused on the nature of success in the natural world.  The death of an individual in the wild is not a failure, he said, but rather a rousing success - for the species.  For me, his description of nature "watching" and "deciding" to create difficulties to test us was annoyingly anthropomorphic, but it is a reasonable perspective on non-individual success.  He later turned to more social ideas, particularly financial and work-related, saying attempts to be successful in those areas were mistakes more often than not.  He repeated the view of others in the meeting, that success can only be measured by the individual for the individual's purposes, saying working for somebody else's goals is simply slavery, and no way to find either happiness or success.