The measure of success
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If I had to count the number of times I have succeeded in my life, I would… well… fail. It continues to happen, several times a day, all week, all year. Nobody hears of these successes because conventional wisdom has a limited understanding of what success really is.
Commercialised and glitz-driven as our world is, it does not overrate success. Instead, it seriously underrates it. The thousand little smiles you earn by doing something you love or by making a tiny little difference in a friend’s or stranger’s life don’t count as successes, but a paycheck does.
The reason behind the above disparity is that the society cannot appreciate what it cannot see. It sees you as a prosperous person. It shows its appreciation by celebrating you and what it sees as your achievements. The said achievement may be nothing more than what you are compelled to do to keep your bread and butter.
Every prosperous person becomes something of a role model to people who think they have still to ‘arrive’. What they choose to emulate in their role models is again, only what is visible — the power, the status and the perks.
Power and status are worthy goals, but unworthy obsessions. People with power make mistakes when they dwell on it too much instead of using it. Status and fame can result in more fame and continued status but it all becomes pointless after a while.
Success, by definition, is merely ‘not failing’. By this logic, people who see themselves as anything less than ‘successful’ label their lives a failure. Our world has set parameters with which it measures the worth of a man. Apart from usual scales like money and power there are unseen ones like one’s perceived value in social circles and the result mingling with someone can bring about.
Such successes become commodities. People cash in on them to pursue more of what they consider success. Society turns into a bunch of retards running after images they think are real. Mirage!
I feel it is perhaps best not to try to measure success. That way, one is free to define their success their own way without feeling obliged to measure it against someone else’s achievements.
In the end, I come back to my often harped point – what works is perhaps to free oneself from labels. It is the tyranny of definitions that makes us lose ourselves. Each one of us is an indefinable entity, and should stay that way.
Posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 2:47 am and filed under life, people, essays.
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Yes, try staying as an indefinable entity. Then look around you, it will be a tiny lonely island in middle of pacific. The fact is we live in a society. And it matters what everybody thinks of you. In some ways, it also defines how you perceive yourself.
And money is not an end in itself. It is all about power. Power to control and mould others to your liking. Even the influence and social standing point to the same predatory urge : power to manipulate others.
This is a primal urge. Look inside, you have it too. Probably you want to choose a different path to power but the destination is same. And the whole ‘indefinable’ thing, although sounds romantic/rebellious etc, hides behind it the same urge. Actually it puts a little mystery cloud around it to hide it from the more conspicuous variety.
It sounds like I need some sleep. Doesn’t it? OK, I am going to, but that was my ‘indefinable’ part speaking!
Lunatic: How nice of you Lord Voldemort, to drop in! But let’s get to your point first. I agree with you when you say, “…it matters what everybody thinks of you. In some ways, it also defines how you perceive yourself” Yes it defines how you perceive yourself. But it shouldn’t.
Next point. Manipulate is a word. Making a difference is a phrase. The world isn’t divided into good people and death-eaters. We all have shades of black and white in us. What makes us what we are is what we choose to be. Letting yourself become something you are not just because that’s people think that is what you are is cowardice.
The primal urge inside me tells me that some of us (not all of us, mind you) are acting out their lives. They aren’t happy but appear to be. And about the destination, there isn’t one. The very fact that you are sure there is one shows you are deceiving yourself. Tell me. At what point in your life will you be happy and content? Won’t you keep slogging your ass off to keep getting better in the eyes of people who think you are successful?
You would be better off keeping yourself happy. Its not selfishness. Its being the best you can be. Its about giving others value, not illusions.
Sleep over it. You will be wiser in the morning.