So, I'm at B&N this weekend, and as usual, I become spellbound by all of the collective knowledge that is, literally, at my fingertips as I walk up and down the aisles. I find it absolutely mind-boggling that you can be in a single edifice and hold the keys to the universe if you look closely enough ( I was, coincidentally, in the space-exploration aisle, although I am not sure how I ended up there). I suppose the same could be said if you are standing in a library, but there is something about those clear plastic wrappings they put on library books that makes what is contained within seem less accessible. But, as usual, I digress.
So, there I am, walking among the aisles of knowledge and I find myself in the self-help section looking at all the titles: The Success Book, How to Succeed in Business, 7 Secrets of Successful Teens etc. All of these books, all dedicated to the notion of success.
And then I began to really question it--how do these books ever sell?
Aren't all individual ideas of what success is dramatically different? And then, it hit me again..."I wonder what are my poppets' definitions of success is? Hmmmmmm...blog question!" And now, here we are.
So, tell me--what is YOUR definition of success? What are the hallmarks, again, to YOU, of a successful person? How do you judge whether or not you are successful? Are there different levels, different measures of importance tied to levels? What do you need to have, to own, to acquire in order to feel successful? What types of things need to happen in order for you to see yourself as a success?
Success in life is what you make it. As cliché as that sounds, I truly believe it. Often, especially in our economy, success is based off of income. How much money an individual makes, often is the basis for how successful someone has been in their lifetime. And I’m not denying that often money is a good indicator of success. But money does not tell an individual’s personal story. Money is not the gauge on how well someone has lived their life, or what they’ve accomplished. One definition from the dictionary describes success as “the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.” Well, thank you dictionary for that insightful response. A second definition states “the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.” Wow, the dictionary sure can tell us a lot about being successful. Needless to say, my snide comments are hitting on what I believe success is, or at least, what I don’t think it is. Success, in my opinion, cannot be gauged. There is no Success-O-Meter. Your money, land, business, position, or power is nothing. Because when you die, all that won’t matter. You won’t be there to boast your success, and you will most likely fade away. In the end, the definition of success is ambiguous and will always be ambiguous. Success is different depending on individuals’ backgrounds, and thus a true definition will never be imminent.
ReplyDeleteTo me, success means accomplishing your goals, and getting to a point in life when you can truly look at yourself and be happy with who you are. As sappy as it sounds, it’s the only way I can gauge someone’s success. There are a lot of people in this world who are quote “successful” and yet, those individuals wake up every day dreading life. Are you truly successful if you can’t even bear the thought of waking up and taking advantage of life? Until you’ve reached the point where you’re content with who you are, in my eyes, you aren’t successful. Sure, you may be a billionaire, have thousands upon thousands of land in your name, and own a multimillionaire business, but your life is void if you don’t enjoy what you’re living for. To be successful is to be happy. Without happiness, success will never occur.
Needless to say, there are different levels of success. They’re called, “the stepping stones to success.” When an individual is able to mark off something on their “list”, and add it to their lists of accomplishments they are leveling up in the game of success. I understand that being truly happy with who you are is a difficult task, and thus that would probably be the ultimate level of success, but being content with where you are would probably be a level below that, and being content with yourself is a realistic goal.
ReplyDeleteDrawing back on what I defined as success, I don’t really think you have to physically acquire anything to be successful. To be successful you have to have grown and adapted as an individual. To be successful, you have to evolve and take another step into becoming a better person in YOUR eyes. The way you view yourself is the only indicator of how successful you are. To truly be successful, you have to adapt a f*** everybody mentality, and focus on yourself, not on what everyone thinks of you.
I personally have a long way to go to become successful. College, a good job, and becoming the next Secretary of State are way down the line for me. As of now, all I can do is encourage myself. When I’m on my deathbed, I don’t want to look back and say “Wow, I’m a multimillionaire. I’m really successful.” Instead, I want to say, “Wow, I’ve accomplished my dreams and goals and am truly happy with the person I’ve become.” Until then, success will only be a simple word hovering above my head, void of any true meaning.
Everyone has a different definition of success. I mean, if you’re a murderer success might be with killing someone and then getting away with it. So in a sense, everyone has a different gauge of what they consider to be successful, and how they feel they will achieve that success. A success-o-meter as I like to call it. It measures how successful you are, but the success-o-meter is different for every single person. No one considers the same things to be successful.
ReplyDeleteSuccess – the feeling of fulfillment and contentment. That’s my definition of success. Not to be contradictory to what I’ve just said, but for the most part, everyone defines success that way. However (here’s where the differences come in) people have different ways to achieving fulfillment and contentment. And then there are more variations, because people vary the things they strive for on different levels and depths. Success is all very subjective if you ask me.
If goals are achieved, then you are successful. I may not agree with your goals, but if you complete them, that’s a success in your own mind. I wouldn’t consider a murder or thief a good person, and I don’t agree with their morals and goals, but they achieved what they set out to achieve.
A successful person to me is someone who achieves their goals and dreams. There are obviously going to be failures in a person’s life. There are going to be times when nothing works. But if that person has a decent amount of successes, well then, they’ve led a decent life.
Successes can be small things like completing homework or getting along with someone. They can also be big things like getting married, having a child, discovering a cure for cancer, or having a job you love. So obviously, there are levels of success. Some successes mean so much more to some people than they do to others. This is explained by the fact that everyone values different things and that everyone has different personalities. We saw that in our previous blog posts, and this one will be no different. We all will consider different things to be a success, because not one of us is the same. That’s the beauty of life at work once again.
ReplyDeleteThere are some goals and dreams that I personally want to achieve by the end of my life and if I get these, then well, I’ll be a successful person. To be successful, I want to find love and happiness. I want to surround myself with good people. I want to find out and understand who I really am. And I’d like to do something I’m really proud of and years from when it happens, I’ll still be able to look back on that event and smile because I know I contributed something great. This thing may even change someone else’s life. It’s a funny thing, you know, that everyone has the ability to change someone’s life. I want to be able to change a person’s life one day.
To be successful, people need goals. They need to have something to accomplish to be successful. Without it, then how can their success-o-meter. Some goals are subconscious, while others are very well thought out. These goals all measure levels of success. In order for myself to be successful, I would like to accomplish my goals, especially the ones most important to me. Life’s a long, difficult road, but in the end, if you set goals and strive to achieve them, it will all be worth it.
Nyamekye: WOW! I did not even read your post and then I realized you wrote about success-o-meters too! Great minds think alike (; On another note, I really liked how you focused on the fact that you don't have to have something tangible to be successful. Money is a measure of wealth, and yeah, money is a great thing to have, but we don't need it to be considered successful. At least I don't. And pertaining to your last line, don't think of success as something hovering over your head without any meaning. Think of all the small accomplishments and successes you make every single day! It helps to put things into perspective about what an amazing person you truly are. (:
ReplyDeleteWell, I’m on this nice laptop of mine. You know, it was $150 off when I got it. That’s really a steal, considering I can still play Shogun 2 on this thing. I guess you guys don’t really know what I mean by that, but that’s okay. Dishonorable, but okay. Well, this laptop purchase is what I’d consider a success. I made an informed choice, after researching for a few weeks, and even missing the other laptop I was really looking forward to. If I had to assign success a definition just from this little mentioning of my laptop, it would have to be reaching a goal you planned on reaching. I was thinking of adding a few things. “It went off without a hitch” or “Everything went better than expected” are two things that also came to mind, but then I started thinking about the premier of a talk show. Say there’s a few bumps on the way. A microphone breaks. The audience reacts too wildly. A camera guy turns into a pile of caramelized onions. And the show goes on, and everyone watches it, and the reviews are generally favorable. Nothing turned out better than expected (it’s actually worse with the pile of caramelized onions behind the camera) but it still went good. The goal was to put on a good show with good reviews, and that’s what happened.
ReplyDeleteSomething else that comes to mind when I think about success is sustenance. If I’m successful in my future, as I expect to be, I’ll be able to support a family. Well, hopefully me and whoever happens to be my wife will be able to support a family. Unless I’m making a nice amount of money. Then it’s just me being successful. It’s not even about the money though. It’s about having a nice family. Okay, maybe it is about the money. Because money buys everything, even sustenance. Of course, if I grew up to be a hunter in the woods, it would be entirely different. But I don’t plan on taking after Jeremiah Johnson.
And yes, there are different levels of success. If success is just reaching a goal, then definitely. I was pretty close to seeing the same chicken patty twice today (I was going to barf it up, if you weren’t catching my drift) but I willed it away. I looked my nausea in the face and berated it until it crawled up into a ball and floated away upon a river of its own tears and self pity. That was a major success, but also minor. I’ve never willed nausea away before, so it was big. But that doesn’t mean anything, because I was still going home early anyways. Minor success in the end. And then there’s me getting into a fantastic college (I’m just feeling out my future here. Don’t mind me) which is major, because whatever colleges I get into will affect what I’ll be majoring in. And whatever I major in will affect my career, salary, and general success in the future. See. An even bigger success. Actually, general success is the biggest success. So if I achieve that, I’m pretty much just one giant success machine, emanating glory and goal-achieving from every orifice on my successful self.
I think tonight my goal was to get the first blog post, and reclaim my throne of all things first-blog-post related. So I wasn’t successful. But I made up for it by leaving all of my gastric juices in my stomach. I suppose it’s not a bad trade off. Not at all.
My definition of success is having many accomplishments. When I located “success” in the dictionary, it defined it as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” When I located “accomplishment” in the dictionary it defined it as “something that has been achieved successfully.” Paradox! So success is the achievement of successful accomplishments?!?! I guess that I need to break it down a little further. To be successful, one must reach a valued position. For myself, being successful means working through an endeavor and being able to look back on the journey and be proud. Even if one doesn’t reach a desired goal, they can still be successful, as long as when they look back, they are proud. To me, there are several hallmarks of being successful. Again, these are MY hallmarks. Condition of living, money, quality of life, level of education, magnitude of personal network, and self confidence. Those are my hallmarks of major success! If you live in a nice area, in a good house, with adequate funds, a sense of self-worth, many personal friends, lots of knowledge, and a sense of love for yourself. You are successful! So according to that, I’m I successful? Hell no! None of us are. But that’s not what’s important necessarily. We’re all really young (even you Bunj), and we have a ton of time left to live. I don’t believe you can be young and successful. As I stated before, success is “working through an endeavor”, and while we may have little goals for ourselves, none of us have really begun to take on the world yet. Getting through another week of Lang is definitely a success, but not the kind of success I’m defining here. None of us are successful yet. Key word “YET”. We are all setting ourselves up to be successful, and that’s what really matters. We will spend years and years trying to become successful, and maybe one day we will be. Again, your ideas are probably much different than mine, but if I can grow up to live comfortably in a place I love, surrounded by people I have rapports with, in a confident state of mind, greatly educated, with no worries about money or self-worth, I will have become successful.
ReplyDeleteNayamekye, I have a slight disagreement on something you mentioned. You wrote “Your money, land, business, position, or power is nothing. Because when you die, all that won’t matter”, which I agree with for the most part. However, we obviously have very different ideas about money. You see it as a sign of greed and boastfulness. I see it as a sign of security and comfort. I agree that the size of one’s wallet does not determine success, but would you not agree that by acquiring large amounts of wealth that one have become more successful? Basically what I’m asking is do you find wealth to be completely irrelevant to success? Or do you find it slightly related like I do? Just curious about your thoughts.
Dominique, I totally agree that “To be successful, people need goals.” A person has to work hard if they want to get anywhere meaningful. As you said, this specifics of meaningful is different for everyone. No matter what your goals are though, it takes work. So, in a way, success is measured by the work one puts into their goals.
Thank you for being honest Cole, especially when you wrote “Okay, maybe it is about the money.” It’s sort of the elephant-in-the-room issue, but as you said, even money buys sustenance. And if your success filled dreams don’t work out, I could definitely see you as a new generation Jeremiah Johnson.
George: I do agree, that money is a sign of security and comfort, and to an extent, it does measure success, however, I just don't think that it's everything. If that makes any sense...? Having money doesn't equal success. There's a lot of idiots out there who are wealthy, only because mommy and daddy left them money, not because they've done anything grand. I also found it interesting how you placed "many personal friends" under your hallmark to success. I'm curious as to why you included that, because I think it's quite bizarre.
ReplyDeleteCole:
I like your little comparison to a television show, it was quite humorous xD I'm not quite sure I completely agree with everything you said, but I definitely understand where you're coming from. Though I don't like to really think about it, sadly, the college you go to generally has a huge impact on where you end up, but then again, the motivation an individual has can lead them to greater accomplishments.
George: One sentence that really stuck out to me was, "Even if one doesn’t reach a desired goal, they can still be successful, as long as when they look back, they are proud." I tried to touch upon that in my post, but you said it much better than I did. I tend to ramble sometimes. Even though I didn't put this in my post, I guess in a way success can be measured by your income. If you're a doctor, you worked pretty freaking hard and went through a lot of schooling to get that paycheck. So you earned it. However, just because you don't have the largest paycheck, you can still be considered a success. So I suppose success can also be defined by how happy you are and if you are able to support yourself. Or even be working on a way to support yourself like you pointed out. So even though I don't completely agree with every single one of your hallmarks, you still backed them up, which was nice. (:
ReplyDeleteYesterday I was tinkering around on Facebook. I didn’t have anything to do at the moment so I decided to be on of those people who post inspirational words on their walls. With the election for the NJASC (state student council) in a month I decided that I should figure out what success was to me and post a status that regarded that. So I came up with “Success is not measured by the amount of battles won, but by the amount of adventures traveled.” A revised version of this would be “Success is not measured by the quantity of battles won, but by the quality of adventures taken.”
ReplyDeleteThis obviously needs to be rid of ambiguity. Success, to me, is when some quality of life becomes better. At the end of the day, you could have won the election for, I don’t know, the NJASC President, but if you didn’t do everything you could to earn that position and you don’t fill the position to the best of your ability, then that win is not really a success. What makes that feat amazing is the adventure that it took to get there.
That being said, a successful person is one who takes chances. No, I’m not talking about people who take a chance on drugs or anything like that. I mean chances that if turn out with positive results or results that can teach you something will help make your life better. There’s a saying in show business, “No one got anywhere by playing it safe.” This saying goes for anything that a person would possibly want to do, chances lead to adventures and adventures lead to experience, experience leads to a better life.
There’s only one way to tell (if any) whether or not you are successful. This is to one day look in the mirror and think “Hey, I’m proud to be me.” If, for whatever reason, you are not proud of yourself, then you aren’t leading a successful life and should make some changes to it. Because there is no concrete value of success, there is always room for improvement and no particular level of success in which you can be in right now.
I don’t know, maybe I look at the world with too much optimism, or maybe I’m just too cliche. I would testify that you don’t need any object to become successful. The only things that are needed if one is to become successful are a positive mindset, the ability to want to work, and the strive to take chances. From my experience, the process of achieving a goal yields more results than the goal itself in a person. That is where success lies. I’m sure many people in this class would disagree with that statement, but I know that in the end those who succeed in life are the ones who are happy. Those who are happy are not necessarily the ones who make a ton of money, they are the ones who can enjoy what it is that they are doing so much that the pros out weigh the cons in their life.
Success is the achievement of something desired. Therefore, my personal version of success can be measured by my own desires. Since the desires of one person differ from the desires of another, the definition of success is in the eye of the beholder. That being said, prepare to explore the idea of success through the strange eyes of THIS beholder.
ReplyDeleteSuccess has absolutely nothing to do with wealth, status, or class. Where one goes to college (or whether they go to college at all), what their yearly income is, what prestigious positions they might hold or awards they might have won. These are all irrelevant. They don’t even qualify as indicators of success in my eyes. In fact, valuing possessions and striving to attain material objects is an indicator of the opposite of success. I’m not saying that it’s a sin to have an expensive car and a high paycheck, but an emotional dependency on these things is a sign of failure.
If you’re searching for true indicators of a person’s success, take a look at the relationships they’ve built with those around them. The way we affect others on an intimate level is one of the key measurements of success. Destructive personalities make for unsuccessful people. Those who bring more pain than joy into the world are failing. Call me a tree-hugger (I’m used to it), but I’ve always found recycling to be a highly successful action. It’s one small way to leave the world in a better state than it was in before you arrived. On a more personal level, we can bring good into the world by simply loving those around us, and by encouraging and helping others to succeed.
A homeless person can be successful. Why not? Success is achieved through satisfaction with oneself. At the prospect of earning a 90 grade point average, some students would throw fits, whereas others would throw parties. If, for example, I aim for a 45 on a test and I achieve a 45 or higher, am I not successful? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating laziness or underachieving, but each person’s level of success is measured on a scale that only they can see. If I choose to drop out of high school and become a subsistence farmer, merely for my love of farming, then doing so would make me successful. If a homeless person is happy with their homelessness, and if their homelessness is not harmful to the world around them, then that homeless person has succeeded.
Success is not marked by a lifelong climb to the top of a mountain, but by the dozens of little hills we ascend every day. Each choice one makes is an opportunity to succeed. People often place the word success on a pedestal, as though success is a big, shiny pot of gold at the end of a person’s life, and there is only one rainbow that leads to that gold, but I disagree. Imagine that each speck of gold is spread out among each of the days in a person’s life, hidden in the self-defining choices that we make. One speck of gold might be overcoming adversity through perseverance. Another might be making a life choice based on happiness rather than on monetary or social benefits. Another, perhaps the most important, might be loving and respecting those around us unconditionally.
Rachel:
ReplyDelete"Success is in the eye of the beholder." I love this! I completely agree with it. There's no possible way to gauge everybody's success, because it all depends on the individual. I feel like we're on the same wavelength on this blog. I agree that success has nothing to do with "wealth, status, or class. Where one goes to college (or whether they go to college at all), what their yearly income is, what prestigious positions they might hold or awards they might have won." However, I don't agree with one of your hallmarks of success being the relationships with they've built with people. I don't really think you can base someone's success off of their relationships, because a lot of people are crappy friends or don't bring anything to the relationship.
Success is an ambiguous term. One of those words that we so dearly want to understand, want to achieve. However, there is no concrete definition, everyone has their own definition. Some define success as the acquisition of money, while others believe success comes in the form of happiness, others still find success in a feeling of accomplishment. These people are all wrong.
ReplyDeleteOn a small scale, there are daily
successes in life. I succeed in waking up for school (barely) and I succeed in finishing my Lang homework early (barely.) These minor successes are the composers of my day, and they end up creating large accomplishments, but mean little in the long run. While everyday there are events that fill your heart with whatever feeling success may entail for you, these events are trivial and the feeling they bring are fleeting.
In a broader sense, I believe that there is no true success that is found during your lifetime. Sure, in the long run you can accumulate millions of dollars and retire to the Bahamas. Monetarily, you’re a success. However, the only thing you’ve truly accomplished is the acquisition of more paper than those “below you.” To me, success comes from lying on your death bed and looking back with no regrets. Your money, your happiness, your assets will be buried along with you. Therefore, the only true success is found in the impact you have on other’s lives, and the love you give to others. Maybe I’m looking at this in too broad of a sense, but I don’t believe that one can truly consider themselves a “success” until after their life is over.
To believe that success comes in death is a truly morbid concept. However, what tangible establishments of our lives matter after we die? While I do believe successes can be found daily, and even in larger macrocosms, I do not believe that success over a lifetime is dictated by our possessions. The people who remember us for the impact we’ve created, and the memories that we leave truly decide whether our lives have been a “success.”
Money generally indicates the success of a person. You could make a case for the kind of job that a person has to indicate their success. From my perspective, success is reaching the point in life when I am happy and free to do the things that matter most. A busy schedule without any elbow room for friends or family is not only mundane, but dreadfully lonely too. Playing tennis frequently is high on my list of a week in the life of successful Tom. Being happy at my job and my home is also a major part of success because having a great job and a fantastic home would be useless if they didn’t make me happy or made me stressed out. That is why I want a career that I enjoy and makes enough money to get by with additional cash to save.
ReplyDeleteTo achieve the above stated important things in my life, there are a few things I must do in order to become successful. First, I must get a good education at a reasonable price (which means not going to MIT for a billion dollars a semester). Education is all good until I am put in debt for the rest of my life. The job I get with a college degree will be used to pay off that debt, not for what I want. Second, I need to purchase a small home that is relatively close to my workplace, so the commute is short and the debt on my house is mostly paid off (like if I could buy a $100,000 home, I would buy a $75,000 home with the bare minimum space). Of course, having a spouse would change things greatly, but I am hoping the person would understand that a big expensive home is unnecessary to living a good life. Third, a day dedicated every week to things that I want to do, not what my boss, my parents, or anyone else wants me to do. Being caught up in work every day would be a terrible vex on my dreams, even though they are modest and simplistic. The things I would want to do on my day off would be play tennis, hang out with friends, and maybe travel if my work allows it. If I achieve all these things, I am successful.
For me, there is a sort of echelon of success. There is unsuccessfulness, moderate success, and success. My worst fear involves not being successful at all due to stupid mistakes I might make. Luckily, I have my parents to help guide me, so I feel more secure with their guidance. Moderate success would be being financially secure, but not really having enough time to do what I want. In other words, I wouldn’t be stressed out of my mind, but I just wouldn’t be enjoying life to the fullest I can. Complete success, or “Time of Awesomeness” as I like to call it, is when I can live life care-free, happy, and simply. I don’t want to live in a big house with more money than I can spend. I don’t want to be able to get my children anything they want in life (because I will give it to them if I can, but that would be spoiling). I just want to be able to live my life without the burdens debt and preoccupation create for most people.
I am a really a simple person. I’m not interested in money. I want nothing to do with being a billionaire with fifty cars and a private jet in my backyard. If I were a billionaire, I would give away pretty much all my money (except however much I need to survive/ do what I want) and live a middle-class life. There isn’t much I need to have other than a job and a paid off home and car for me to feel successful. These things, despite aphorisms generally related to this topic, are crucial to success in my eyes. Money isn’t the cause of success; it is the catalyst for it.
Rachel: I really liked your third paragraph about people having destructive personalities failing in the scheme of life. Very well said and to the point. However, I would have to disagree with the fact that wanting material possesions as being a failure. I think a majority of people would like to have a million dollars, even people who are happy and content with their life would like to have money. People have dreams and goals, and if that dream is to someday attain a highranking position or an award, then that's just a goal they have. It brings them happiness to be able to say they have achieved something. For example, if someone wanted to be at the top of their high school class, (granted it might not mean much in the grand scheme of life) it's something they still work at and set their mind to. If that brings them happiness and something they are proud of, they I wish them all the best. So I can't say wanting to have awards and material possessions is a failure. It's an accomplished goal. Having money and material possessions is no where near the only thing in life, but it's nothing to be ashamed of wanting.
ReplyDeleteTo Matt: I found it pretty interesting that you felt that death with no regrets determined success. I mostly focused on the feeling of success, not really the actual definition of a successful life. Otherwise, I completely agree with you. Living a life with no "What if I did this..." or "What if I said that instead..." is definitely what I feel would make my life successful, and, frankly, more interesting.
ReplyDelete“Success,” like many words of the English language, has a connotation that exceeds its denotation, rendering its dictionary definition negligible. This trait of the word “success” is what makes this blog question possible. Everyone strives to be successful, and we all take different strides to reach success. We set goals and then attempt to achieve them. My definition of success would be the accomplishment of your goals. But perhaps success is not limited to the completion of your goals. Maybe you can feel successful if you’re on the right path to fulfillment.
ReplyDeleteA person is only successful if he thinks that he is successful. Success is a state of mind, rather than a physical or social state. In our capitalist nation, a successful person is largely depicted as someone who achieves a middle-class status or higher. To attain this status, one must participate in a well-paying job, so wealth is a factor. Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist, had opposite endeavors than the average American. He found success in living a dirt-poor life by Walden Pond because he was leading a natural and self-fulfilling life. Living in this capitalist society has definitely influenced my definition of the word “success.” A successful person in my eyes has achieved middle-class status and, depending on preference, is living with alone or with a family.
To judge whether or not you are successful, you need to look yourself in the mirror. You need to use the mirror to reflect on your life at that point. You need to ask yourself if you are happy. Happiness can probably be considered a synonym of success, because you must reach favorable results in order to feel either. Anyway, if you say yes to this question after some thought, then chance dictates that you are successful! This method may not always work for reasons unknown to me, but it’s the best I got.
There are certainly different levels of success. This can range from how successful you are in a certain area of your life, or how important the areas of success are compared to the other areas of success or areas of disappointment. The best way to measure success is to measure the composition of completed goals. You can literally take a pencil or pen (or quill if you’re feeling fancy), a piece of paper (or parchment if you still have that feeling), and regurgitate every single goal that you’ve wanted to complete. Luckily, this first part is the hard part. Next, check every goal as complete or incomplete. Compare the completed goals to the incomplete goals, compare the completed goals to each other, and then compare the incomplete goals to each other. Assign number values to these goals. Finally, using a complex mathematical formula involving calculus, determine how successful you are. If you’re having trouble with this last part, I advise you to seek assistance from a middle-class mathematics major.
In order for me to feel successful, I’m going to have to wait a few decades. I’m hoping to have been settled into a career and a marriage by my thirties, and eventually reproduce to form offspring. I’ll need to be living in a decent sized house, which I’ll be paying for with my well-paying job. Once I reach these goals, I will see myself as successful. I still have my whole life as an adult ahead of me, so I’m far from setting some of the most important goals in my life, in case these aren’t it. In order for me to see myself as successful I’ll need to put myself through some of the tests that I came up with in the last few paragraphs, and hopefully I score well on them. If I take the tests with a quill on parchment, I might automatically pass them because I’ll need to have enough wealth and happiness to feel that fancy.
To George: I really liked your opening with the conflicting definitions of “success” and “accomplishment.” Although I hadn’t said it in my post, I agree that success is looking back with pride. Of course, looking back with pride is easier when you’ve accomplished your goals. The only thing I disagree with is the attainment of many close friends. Close friends are obviously necessary, but I think a few will suffice. Other than that, my idea of success is closely related to yours.
ReplyDeleteTo Cole: Anyone who does not know Shogun 2 is very dishonoraber! I’ve never seen the word “caramelized” before, but now I have thanks to you! Whether you want to be successful alone with tons of money or with a family, I know you can do it, Cole. Even if you want to be a successful mountain person, you can do it, Cole. My goal of tonight was to finish my blog post with three comments, and I’ve achieved that goal!
To Mike: Success can definitely be defined as an improvement. It slightly deviates from my definition, but I wouldn’t disagree with it. I also mentioned the process of an endeavor as a possible success. After reading more of your post, I can’t believe how much you’ve mentioned that I completely agree with that I’ve left out. This topic has much that can be said about it. Taking chances is absolutely necessary to be successful, and looking at the world from an optimistic point of view is, obviously, a positive thing.
Success is the achievement of any goal, no matter how small. If I aim to throw a tack into the air and catch it on my tongue, and I succeed, well, there it is. I succeeded. If I aim to not breathe for three minutes straight, and I don’t, well what do you know, I succeeded again. If I aim to never have a job a day in my life and be so poor I’m living off the woods, and I find that I’m out bathing in a snapping-turtle ridden stream, well there you have it. Success, double the c, double the s. Really, success is just the accomplishment of anything you set out to do. My success may be your worst nightmare. My brain thinks to itself, “Alright, let’s do this, let’s take that next breath. Suddenly, I breathe in, and then exhale! I have successfully breathed! I say to myself all of the time, “Let’s try not to pull your groin again today.” This morning, I put my Uggs on the ground and forgot about their existence three seconds later, naturally. Four seconds later, I took a step back and went half way into a split to keep my balance when I stepped on them. Mission failed, success not reached. But, today when I thought to myself, “Okay, let’s start this homework by 8.” Oh wait, no, I failed that too. The point is, a success is only a success of an aim, explicitly stated or subconsciously hoped for. A failure is just the lack of a success, or I suppose, a success is that lack of a failure, either or.
ReplyDeleteTwo people stand around a basketball net, each with a basketball at hand. One lazy yet happy guy thinks, “Okay man, I wanna miss this effin’ basket.” The other ambitious guy thinks, “Okay, I want to make this basket.” The lazy guy, there’s no way he can fail. All he has to do is turn the opposite way and drop the ball, and he’s going to be successful in his endeavors. And maybe the ambitious guy will make it, though his chances are absurdly smaller. He’ll take a step back and keep pushing himself until it’s nearly impossible to succeed. Ultimately, he may fail. He may be miserable. He may end up playing for UCLA. Many might find him successful, but if he considers his aim to only be the NBA and no less, he’s going to consider himself to be a failure. The lazy bum on the other hand will be successful. Not by the same standards as the other guy, but in his world he’ll consider himself successful. He can miss every shot if he wants to, unless some freak barracuda flies though the air and flips its tail at the precise moment the ball is sailing towards it, and the ball goes in. Then again, maybe the aim was to miss without any help, even that of a flying barracuda. Then, he still succeeded in what most would consider a really awesome failure.
But what if he chooses to miss every shot, but still aims to be a pro? Ultimately, he’ll still be a failure. So will the UCLA player too, if he sets his standards too high. So, the key to success is to know your limits, even if you hate calculus. Know what will make you happy. One of the most universal things is to want to be happy. Some people don’t, I suppose, but for the most part, if you know what will make you happy, you can know what to set your goals as. Overstretch these goals, and success is slimmed down to such an infinitesimal chance that you become destined to fail. Don’t set standards low if you want what’s up high, but be willing to settle in the middle. When the middle is settled for, you can remain happy with what you have and did. If the high is still achieved, then you just doubly succeeded. Not going to lie here, but I’ve kind of always loved black baseball players. A small part of me aspires to be one (and I say black because I’m infatuated with the long legs, I apologize if I’m stereotyping) but I can’t focus my whole life around this. If I set up the line between success and failure on whether or not I become the next Ryan Howard, I’m screwed. Problem 1: I’m a girl. Problem 2: I’m short, and though fast, I’m still short. They don’t even like players that are men under six foot. Problem 3: I’m not exactly black. Native American, a teensy bit, but not black. Basically, I can’t, I just physically cannot become a black baseball player. And if I do, I’m not coming out of it Amber. Know your limits and don’t determine success on impossibilities.
ReplyDeleteOr, just do what I do anyway. I measure success of life as a whole on happiness. I see life as one big empty pot when you’re born. All the sad stuff is going to happen. It’s guaranteed that with life comes death, and you know, death is sad. So sadness is guaranteed, but never in life are you guaranteed to be happy. So I see life as a pot where you try to acquire and feel as much happiness as possible before your time is up. Success is happiness to be. Sometimes little successes add up to happiness, but mostly I measure my successes on how happy I am. The key here is, don’t tie happiness to success. They’re not the same. Don’t feel that unless you succeed you can’t be happy. Be happy with trying. Be happy with knowing you’re giving it your all. Know that even if you don’t change genders, races, and gain 10 pants sizes and 100 skills, you can still be happy. That is success to me. Learning to be happy with what you have and all that you can do. Being amazed and finding joy in flying barracudas and being okay with just watching black baseball player legs instead of owning your own pair.
Now is about the point in every blog where I go back and look at the questions I was supposed to answer. Now is the point where I sit down and analyze how off-topic my tangent was and try to salvage it. Well it would actually appear as though I managed to offhandedly answer most of the questions. But, as far as levels go, I guess I measure that with happiness. Not so much how happy you are, but in how easily you can find happiness. At first, the thought of this blog was pestering me. I thought something along the lines of, “Wow, I really don’t think I have much to say about this. This isn’t going to be fun. Let’s see how much I can manage to squeeze out of this topic.” And here I am, an hour and a couple pages later, astonished yet not really surprised by my ever present ability to find something to rant about. And on top of that, I found this fun. Well, this was a success, double the c, double the s.
Mike G: I completely agree with you on so many levels. And there is no such thing as too much optimism! Even though it can get really annoying for pessimists, too much optimism is so hard to make go wrong, unless you hope that random miracles will save you from doing anything, but I know you don’t do that. And you definitely need to be willing to take chances, to work, to be positive.
ReplyDeleteRachel: I’ve always said the world thing! I’ve always wanted to leave the world as a better place than when I came here, or at least to have given more than I have taken. I completely forgot about that part. As far as a society goes (cringe) that is the true measure of success. Have you given more than you have taken from society, happiness, natural resources, love? And I love the specks of gold thing! Success isn’t a final destination, it’s a lifetime.
Matt: I like the idea that success can’t be determined until after death for several reasons. For one, overall, how can we label ourselves definitively until it’s over? Also, I love the idea that success isn’t material. It’s all feelings and memories, like you said. Yours follows along with Rachel’s a little in that sense, that success is a measure of impact on others and on the world. That certainly coincides with my perception of success as well, although I think people who believe success is money are right too. It’s perception, but you might be a little more on the mark.
Success is a personal measurement. At least, it ought to be. Success is measured by personal goals, and whether those goals are achieved. It's that simple: what you get out of life is determined by what you want out of life. Of course, easy goals don't provide much success. The level of success is related to the personal difficulty, the amount of hard work and how much of a reach the goal is; boiled down, it's a simple equation (I know how you love them, Bunje) that is unique for each person. Success is being able to look back, on the day that you die, and honestly tell yourself that you pushed yourself to new limits, that whatever it was that you wanted, you did what was necessary to get it.
ReplyDeleteOn a personal level, success is fairly difficult to attain, this is because I expect a lot from myself. I don't think I'd be crazy to say that I was gifted with an above average level of talent in a couple of areas, particularly math and science. So for me, the ultimate success would be to make a significant change using these skills. That's why the field of biomedical engineering has always been so attractive to me, I would develop technologies that directly affect people's welfare. The idea that something I could make could save a life is the most meaningful measure of success I can imagine. Although, doing all of that while playing professional baseball would be nice too...
Levels of success exist, but not so extensively. Every person will achieve some goals and not others, this is a fact of life. Success isn't about what you have or what you own, it's about respecting yourself for the things you've done. Actually, I'm not even sure I could respect myself if I had an expensive car and an expensive house, having nice things is well, nice, but there are better things to do with excess time and money. I could not view myself as successful if I spent my money in that way, although a lot of that is just talk.
Success is what you want it to be.
Amber- Sorry about the whole starting your homework by 8 thing, that's kind of my fault isn't it, sometimes I don't shut up. While I admire your aspiration to be a black baseball player, I have to say that your definition of success has some holes. Achieving just any goal is nice, but some goals are meaningless, some goals are insanely stupid and so easily achieved that they are just ego-boosters. Sometimes goals can be insane and impossible, but the insane and the impossible goals are the ones that really make us into what we want to be, whether that be simply a better person, or whether it requires a race and sex change.
ReplyDeleteRachel- I agree with your definition of success, but a successful homeless person? At least in terms of the stereotypical homeless person, who has no option but to live on the street , I find this unlikely. And if someone's goal is to be homeless, and is set oh-so-low that to them success is homelessness, maybe they have succeeded, but what good have they done for themselves and others? What I guess I'm trying to say is that, if you and I are right and success is the accomplishment of goals, then some successes are trivial and meaningless.
Mike G- Well that certainly puts everything I was babbling on about into a simple phrase, “adventures traveled,” I like that. Since adventures, by nature, teach us something about ourselves and improve us as people, they certainly have much more value than material things or even goals. Thanks for that.
Success is something I seek fervently and furiously every day of my life. From acing a vocab test to putting in a good amount of hard work at swim practice, I am essentially seeking success in every little way. But what exactly is this success (beyond the little things)? And what makes one successful? To determine my answer to this, I considered my daily routine.
ReplyDeleteWhen I study for a test my goal is to receive the best possible grade on that test. When I swim an event, my goal is to achieve the best possible time in that event. When I go shopping, I aim for the best deals, and ultimately, the best use of my money. When I am pleased in these areas …THAT is success. I do not equate success with riches and treasures, or with what gets me the most attention. In simplest terms, success is being proud, and not regretting past effort. When you have no regret in anything you have done, you are successful.
I don’t believe that there are any definite hallmarks in successful people. For the most part, we are all searching for something different out of life. Maybe I will not embody the ideal “successful woman” in the opinion of someone else. However, if I am pleased with my life and if I do not regret any of my decisions, I believe that I am successful. It is not up to us to live in the image of other people’s discretions, for we all have differing paths and goals. If we reach our goals, no matter how meaningless they are to anyone else, who is to say that we haven’t been successful?
If there are “levels of success” then they are designed by those who achieve them. I mark my success by the proximity in which I reach my goals. By this measure, I can work to improve myself every time and be able to see just how close I was. Because we cannot expect to be perfect every time and with any amount of ‘letdown’ there is a likelihood of regret; those who seek success must use that regret to locate their errors, and work to fix them in the future, thus reaching success.
I personally am not expecting any tangible aid to help me reach success. Though I’m hopeful for a scholarship to college, it isn’t the scholarship that proves my success but MY acknowledgement of MY efforts. My long-term vision of success consists of not having to wish that I’d bettered my education or utilized my sports practices more efficiently. I want to be content with my life, knowing that I’ve done everything I could to be where I am today – and find happiness in that.
To James: I understand that you need to work hard to achieve your goals and be successful. However, my goals aren't so steep and labor-intensive. Simplicity is my goal, which, not surprisingly, is not very hard to obtain. But, according to the first part of your definition of success, I would not be successful after I reach my goal. This disconnect between our ideas of success proves everybody's point that everybody has a different view of success. Also, I admire your goal of being a professional baseball player biomedical engineer. Being a baseball player could be a side job for you.
ReplyDeleteSuccess, to me, goes beyond being rich and powerful. It’s much more than the stereotypical Donald Trump archetype. Success is finally achieving, after an extensive, arduous journey, what you set out to do. It’s reaching the finish line after being pushed aside and doubted for so long. It’s attaining your goal. It’s proving to your doubters that you’re more than they bargained for. Success cannot simply be measured in wealth or job position; it’s measured in the amount of people proved wrong and the amount of heart poured in. A successful person is confident, humble, determined, focused, and most importantly, passionate. Not only are they good at what they do, they love doing it, too. That trait is rare in those who are considered “successful” anymore.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself relatively successful – I slave hours upon hours into my education and I love learning new things. I don’t take AP classes as a sort of competition with my classmates, I do it because I have a thirst for knowledge and I love being able to prove to people who have constantly beat me down that I’m worth something. Naturally, there are different levels of success because one person will always put more of themselves into their field than another. For instance, a doctor who genuinely enjoys helping people will be more successful than a doctor who’s in it for the money. Sure, he may not make as much money, but he’ll do everything in his power to make sure that his patients are happy, healthy, and comfortable whereas the doctor who just wants to make some dough probably would do his job and skip out with no regard for what happens to the patient in the end.
In order to be successful, one must first find their passion. Passion is not only something that one is talented at, but also what they love to do. Something they can do day in and day out without getting bored but is also realistic. No offense to anyone who loves the arts, but more often than not, achieving stardom is a dream seldom reached. It’s a beautiful and noble idea, but it’s highly unlikely that any sort of goal is really reached. Of course, to be viewed as successful by most people, one has to have money and power. One has to be Donald Trump. But, I think to be successful is to reach a goal, to achieve a dream, to prove people wrong, to love what you do. With success won’t always be that sought after salary, but as long as you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ve achieved the standards you’ve set for yourself, and you don’t let anyone else’s negativity bring you down, you’re a success.
To Becca: The similarities of our definitions of success is pretty cool. We both think that success is not only achieving our goals, but also finding happiness in whatever we do. Our goals may be completely different, but life-fulfillment will be part of both our lives (if we are successful of course).
ReplyDeleteJames: I agree when you say that levels of success are based off of the degree to which one is challenging oneself, but you should give yourself more credit! I mean, you're a total math/science connoisseur, you were one of the three kids coming over here in eighth grade to take a math class; I don't see how you don't find yourself to be successful at all! You're like Jimmy Neutron (maybe not with all the fancy galaxy-bending gadgets), be proud dude!
ReplyDeleteConnie: I know what you mean with being successful is all personal, I mean, who is anyone else to judge how successful you are? If you're proud of yourself, then no one else's opinion should matter.
Tom: I love your description of success. I find it beautiful that you want to make the most out of your life, but not too much. I know most people would opt for the big house with the fancy cars and indoor swimming pool just because luxury is attractive to them. But I love how you'd rather be in a small house with a normal car and a normal job; you're not going for extravagance, you're going for normalcy. I just find that ideal is so rare nowadays, but I'm glad to see that you still find it to be optimal.
Sucess is a hard term to define. It can have completely different meanings for everyperson;
ReplyDeleteconversely it can have the same meaning for anyone who cares. A few weeks ago I was
looking at poetry online. While I was investigating, I found this Alisha Ricks poem that I believe fits everything that I define sucess as.
Success is working to full potential
Success is courage
Success is lending a hand
Success is not listening to negativity
Success is being positive
Success is living your life instead of the life of others
Success is being proud
Success is overcoming obstacles
Success is striving
Success is listening to your heart
Most of all success is accepting
What you have accomplished
I couln't have possibly explained my views of sucess any better. In my opinion sucess is one of the most elastic words in the English language. Every situation calls for a different type of sucess. It can come in many shapes and forms.
When I think of sucess I think of all the different possibilities; all of the different
people in the world. Everyone has the ability to be sucessful. How sucessful you
are depends on your own life. Obviously my views of sucess are different then
Martin Luther King Jr. or the guy down the street. I also think that there are differrent types of sucess based on different situations.
I don't think there are many "characteristics" of a sucessful person. Sucess is
something personal. No one has to know if you are sucessful or not. Of course
there are those people that gloat about social status and pay raises, but I don't
think that qualifies as sucess. To me, it's internal. It's something that a person
has to overcome on their own.
So what needs to be done for myself to be considered a sucess. Well to start off,
I need to do something positive. Where I come from and from what I've seen negitivity and pessimism do not tag along the title of Sucess. Whether it's doing what I think is right or helping someone in need my life is a sucess. It is however hard for me to
pinpoint the exact whereabouts that sucess hides. It changes all the time. I've probably said this a hundred times already, but sucess is constantly changing. There is one constant that sucess trails behind. That is taking responsibility. I can't see myself being a "sucess" if I cannot take credit or blame for something that I have or haven't done.
Connie: I like how you said that sucess is being proud. I also enjoyed that little blip about having no regrets. I think this is a pretty big deal. I agree that you cannot be sucessful and have regrets. Regrets are things that hold people back from their full potential and, in my opinion, you cannot be sucessful if you don't give full potential.
ReplyDeleteJames: My entire blog post was pretty much a bunch of blabbing that your post could have summed up. I have great respect for you and enjoy reading your posts. In this particular post, however, I disagree with what you said about "easy goals." To me a goal is a goal no matter how small or how large. This also brings in the personal matter stuff. An easy goal for you may not be an easy goal for you. Then again I am not sure that a goal like getting a one hundred on a vocab quiz is as fufilling as saving a zoo full of animals from burning to death. To me, I think it would be. It's all about having pride in what you do.
Mimi: Sucess is being happy with yourself. I don't think you can say, with your head held high, that you are a sucess without feeling it inside. I have meet a lot of people in my short seventeen years. Of everyone I have talked to about sucess, I cannot say that I have met one that said they were an angry, regretful, pessimistic, depressed person. They were, are very humble people.
I have a very simple definition of success....
ReplyDeleteSuccess- achieving ones set goals, whether long or short term goals
I find it funny that me and a friend were actually talking about this subject (very loosely however) before the appearance of the blog. She was telling me how money makes everything better, and you need it to have happiness and success. I just sat there and listened and when she was done 2 songs came to my mind and I started to sing them to her. "It's not about the money, money, money...", "forget about the price tags" I would repeatedly say. Then I told her it's all about being happy to be successful and played the song "Get Happy" for her. We weren't serious in our arguments, it was just suppose to be a "pretend" fight to make us laugh.
When I envision successful people, I see people who have a sense of fulfillment having completed their goals and are now happy. What is really needed to become successful is good old hard work to achieve the goal that you are striving for. For example, a track star who wants to win 1st place in his meet, wins first place because he has practiced everyday. He is then overcome with joy and excitement having completed his goal. Is he not successful in achieving what he wanted to achieve? I figure there is a direct correlation between success and feelings of happiness. In addition the opposite is true, happiness can lead to success. A person who loves there job can become the best at what they do and make a lot of money, this also makes them a success.
However, not all success is on the same level as each other. For example, making money is often seen as the ultimate success, higher than any other success out there. It is often stated that success comes from how much money you have.. Such things like getting an A on an essay are negligible compared to the success of making tons of money. Sadly that’s how this world runs, and I don't know if can be changed.
Often it is the short term goals that are put on the lower levels of success because they fulfill the wants wanted in the moment while a long term goal will provide more fulfillment and therefore it will be much more rewarding having waited so long to obtain this success..
I already see myself as an success in some ways. I've been able to overcome difficult obstacles where people might have failed and become the person I have become. I take great pride in that success. In order to become successful in other ways, I believe I have to learn to be patient, hardworking, and never steer off my goal. If I acquire these traits I'll become successful the way I see it.
I believe that long-term success is the only true kind of success. Unless a person is retired with a buttload of money – enough that he or she can live the rest of his or her short life in absolute stresslessness – there is no way they can attain any sort of “success homeostasis,” which is a term I just made up. Until then, one can only fluctuate between living comfortably and living uncomfortably … and they will ALWAYS have responsibilities until then. The true definition of success is the point when the value of one’s livelihood (livelihood meaning confidence, hope, health, potential, or a buttload of money) outweighs the value of his or her responsibilities. I don’t need to own anything – per se – in order to feel successful. I just need to be out of debt (or in denial) and not have so many obligations that I spend most of the day thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThe books sell because people always, without fail, require some sort of guidance in life. No one (who is not in possession of a buttload of money) knows what is going to happen to them later in life. The books offer closure to people with low self-confidence – a kind of personal closure that says “everything’s going to be alright.” I would buy one of those books just as soon as I would buy, say, a Mormon self help book or Snooki’s autobiography. Closure, like an imaginary friend, is unneeded by most people, but apparent among those who need it the most.
Success is to achieve. It is to achieve to the greatest extents of our ability. It is to be revered by others for achieving. Achievement is associated with wealth. Wealth is considered anything valuable materialistically, emotionally, and socially. Personally, success consists of living debt free; within our realm of economics. It is to live comfortably by sustaining our personal wants and needs. This does not have to be living extravagantly but it can be if you want to be. I for one would like to live comfortably and satisfy my monetary needs. But this part of success is very trivial compared to my other components.
ReplyDeleteSuccess would heavily consist of obtaining a wealth of friends. Friends are truly the greatest assets; friendship always proves to be the most enjoyable investment in the end. It’s like George Bailey expressing his richness in friends and family at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life”. True friends will be there at the end to pick you up in your darkest of moments and cheer you on in your endeavors. The emotional and social wealth that is drawn from these experiences is exponentially amazing. This is being successful in truly the best of ways.
Success can be attributed to family as well. However, this does not apply to everyone, nor is it requisite to being successful. Some people choose not to have a family; they would rather enjoy various close relationships or they have no desire for marriage or children. This is perfectly fine by me; some people probably have very good reasons as well, but that’s another topic. Anyway, family can prove to be a great measuring stick for success. No matter the size; a happy, loving, and dynamic family will prove to be an indicator for success. Family is special; it consists of people for whom you would risk your life. And doesn’t that equate to something incredibly valuable?
Moving on, success consists of finding something to love. I’m not talking about friends or family here; I’m talking about something at which one becomes good or expresses passion towards. This is a part of fulfilling our natural human need to have a purpose. Identifying and excelling at one’s purpose is a necessary component for success. There is no questioning it. Deciphering one’s purpose in society is crucial because it allows us to be content with what we do, and establishes a social confidence within ourselves. This concept has success written all over it.
Are there different levels of success? I would say so; again it’s all subjective. Some things I place above others such as friendship and doing things I love. I place these above things like monetary wealth. It’s all up to who we are as individuals. Of course I still do like cash.
What it all boils down to is being happy. Happiness = Success. If we can live happily for a majority of our existence, then I would say that we achieved something pretty substantial. And like I said; success is achieving to the greatest extent of our ability. I would sure say that establishing happiness requires the greatest extent of our abilities in life. Now, I have my definition for success sitting on the screen right here, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be able to fulfill all my requirements. I believe that if I stay on my path and the plan I’ve accepted for myself; I can achieve happiness and as a result be successful. Alas, there are many obstacles in life. And part of success is plowing through those obstacles to find it. We are all sitting on a goldmine of success. What is between us and that success is a deep layer of rock. The layer of rock is society and the struggles that come with it. It was never said that success would be easy to obtain. So the time it takes us to break through to prosperity depends on the time and effort we are willing to lend to these endeavors towards success. We can all reach it, but “when” will be considered reaching it too late? This is a question we all need to consider asking ourselves.
Oh sheesh, I almost forgot about my comments! Okay, so here they are:
ReplyDeleteCole: I’m sure I’m going to have this same type of comment towards a lot of people, so don’t think I’m picking on you. I just chose to comment on yours because you typically entertain me. I don’t feel that achieving a goal really means success. My goal could be to kill someone, but in the end I would feel like crap for killing that person and drive myself to insanity. Therefore, achievement does not mean success. In my opinion, the only real way to be successful is through the process of becoming better in the pursuit of a goal. So say I end up going to some Ivy League school like Harvard, I graduate from there. That’s my goal, to graduate. The part of it that makes me successful is not that I graduated from Harvard, it is the huge amount of knowledge that I learned while going there.
James: Haha you’re welcome James! Anyway, you’re totally right about success being specific to each person. That is one of the reasons why I don’t think it can be measured nor compared. Success is a thing in which each person who seeks it must go out and travel their own adventure to find. I also think that there is no ultimate success. People can never be perfect, so there are more ways for that person to become more successful in every journey.
Connie: I completely agree with you. Our own individual success is based off of not having regrets. I just want to make sure that in your process of regretting nothing you remember that there are certain chances that you need to take to do your best (as I’m sure you’ve seen already) and to make sure you take them even if you think you will regret them. Chances are, you won’t regret those decisions in the end.
Success.... I feel like success is something a little less Interpretive than some of the other things we've had to write about here, but I guess my definition of success is a black and white definition anyway. To me success is when a person, or anything that can have goals, sets goals and achieves them. Success is what you get as a product of hard work, as an individual thing success is the feeling that you get from achieving said goals.
ReplyDeleteHowever the hallmarks of a successful person are highly interpretive I feel. Someone who is successful is someone who is consistently achieving their goals and always setting new ones, and who challenges themselves in setting his or her goals and sets the bar higher every time.
I don't happen to think that there are different levels of success but I would at that there are different categories of success. From what I can think of right now the main categories are: family, personal, social, and financial.
I don't happen to think that there are different levels of success but I would at that there are different categories of success. From what I can think of right now the main categories are: family, personal, social, and financial.
ReplyDeleteFamilial success would be having offspring who set goals and reach them. If your family gets along relatively well and there's not abusive relationships going on I would consider that success with your family. Success socially I think is the category of success most closely linked to emotions and interpretation. For example, one person might feel that social success is having lots of friends and being well liked by many people, on the other hand another person might feel that social success is how well you can manipulate the people around you. Two very different perspectives but both could be considered success. Personal success is basically what the original question was and like I said its just accomplishing your goals, whatever they may be. Financial success i think is the most uninterpretable because you either have money or you don't and success would be having money, however I am definitely not saying that it's necessary to have ample amounts of money or that money brings happiness, just that having money means being financially successful.
The things that I feel are necessary to success are the same things that need to happen in my life in order for me to be successful:
A house
A college degree
An occupation
Hobbies that I enjoy
Money (not to be filthy rich, but to not have to worry about my power being shut off every month)
Friends
A social life
A car (depending on where I live)
Wisdom
Right now these are the only things I could think of but most of the things on my list are material things, but it's what the material things represent that is really important. Like the college degree, that represents the hard work and time that I had to put fourth in order to receive that. And the wisdom because in order to be successful you must first become wise, which is why there are so many rich old people (using financial success as an example) it took them a long time to be able to understand what they needed to do in order to be successful.
My definition of success is accomplishing one’s goals and dreams. From that, comes a feeling of happiness. Everyone defines success differently, but without attaining that feeling of happiness, I don’t believe you are successful. The path to success is also extremely important. Performing different tasks allows us to show the world who we really are and let our talents and knowledge shine. Let’s say you define having money as being really successful. If you didn’t earn that money and you inherited your parents’ fortune, what is there to be proud of? However, if you worked hard and are proud of the fact that you have earned a solid gold bathtub, then round of applause to you. You are successful. Achieving is everything in success. Overcoming obstacles is something that everyone has to work through in order to become successful. People should also be prepared to fail, more than once. But once you reach your level of success, you’ll be able to look back at your journey and feel proud of how far you’ve come.
ReplyDeleteThere are many different levels to success. It’s a very ambiguous term. Someone could define success as passing math class with a D or the fact that they get up every morning for school. Someone could define it as becoming a drug dealer.
People think the little things define success, but ultimately I believe that long-term success is much more relevant. It gives a greater sense of fulfillment knowing you have taken many more steps to achieve this goal.
There are a few things that I would need to acquire to feel successful. Like I said, I believe long-term goals are more relevant. The A’s I get on tests now won’t matter too much once I get a job. But I do believe I am somewhat successful so far, knowing that I’ve worked hard to get where I am now. But it’s the future I’m focused on. Success is having a job that I really enjoy doing. Money won’t define my success. If I’m truly happy, the money will follow. I also define success as having a loving family that will support me one day. My family right now plays a huge part in my life because they’ve had such an impact on my success and happiness. Knowing that I can possibly have an impact on my future family one day will be a magical feeling. To sum it all up, you must be hardworking, passionate, and happy to gain that status of success.
Nyamekye: I don't think you meant it this way but I kinda seems like ur saying that people with money don't usually end up happy and I just want to say, in general really, that money certainly can't buy happiness but considering the accepted values of the world today the only way you can live without worry and be able to focus on what truly makes you happy there's gotta be some money. Which also may be why people value money so much because it, for the most part, takes a lot of time to aquire a lot of it and then manage it well and such.
ReplyDeleteTed: I absolutely agree with your definition of success although I've never thought of it as "debt free" perse but yes.
George: when you started explaining the paradox of successful accomplishments I immediately thought of the voice in the YouTube video that Mr. Cervi showed us with the white board drawing only a lot more enthusiastic.
Ted: We have the same philosophy of success. We both think that Success is achieving, we both believe that "Happiness = Success", and we both believe wealth should not have a direct relation to success. We both have the same philosophy but you explained it so much better than I. All my values are written in your blog. Having a wealth of friends, was something I wanted to put in my blog but I feared it would make it too long.
ReplyDeleteJanel: I like how you stated what "success is...". I agree with every single point written in that list and could not find anything to argue with in your logic. I also agree that "every situation calls for a different type of success" because all our definition of success are different, it depends on the situation to call it success.
Becca: Could not agree with you more. If I thought me and Ted had the same definition of success you hit it more on the had closer to my definition. Success is working long and hard, pushing aside you obstacles to finally "attain your goal." In addition, I like your idea about finding you passion to becoming successful, and though you didn't mention it, that passion will lead you to happiness.
Becca: I really like what you said in your last paragraph about proving people wrong and not letting negativity bring you down. All the time, people let obstacles and other people get in the way of achieving what they really want. It’s sad, but it can be pretty difficult to overcome it. But once you’re on top, no one can bring you down. I think people should remember that.
ReplyDeleteConnie: I feel there will always be regrets when you are working towards success. You can look back at all the regrets you’ve made, but knowing that you’ve worked past them is true success.
Dan: One of the things you said stuck out to me, “Maybe you can feel successful if you’re on the right path to fulfillment.” Although I believe achieving your goals is true success, the path to it is pretty darn important. Once you’re on that path, you’ve probably already overcome many things. You can look back and be proud that things haven’t deterred you from achieving your goal so far.
Cole: Always well done my good sir. Anyway, I like how you have an appreciation for all your moderate and small successes. I mean I think it is great to be able to reflect on all the little things that went right, and consider them to be part of a great day. Success in the end is what we make it to be; we control our success in the future. Like you said the college you choose will dictate certain things like major and that dictates your job, and so on. Our actions need to be goaded along the way to make sure we at least achieve that moderate success.
ReplyDeleteMike: You are a very optimistic person. Don’t ever stop being that person. I live life as a realist and sometimes my mindset is annoying. But I do have spurts of optimism, so don’t worry. Anyway, what you said about the success being in the road taken towards your goals is probably partially true; of course I only hold victory as success. With the way you work to do things, and the optimism you display; you are certainly on the fast track to success. I also like what you said about taking chances. This is essentially courage which factors into the road to success.
Nick: I think you are right in many ways with your explanation of success. I can buy into the idea that success is when “one’s livelihood (livelihood meaning confidence, hope, health, potential, or a buttload of money) outweighs the value of his or her responsibilities.” I actually like that idea; I think it meshes into what I was babbling on about to a certain extent. Also I can agree with what you said about people with a lot of money to an extent as well. Overall, we all need to work hard to shape the level of our success.
Becca:
ReplyDeleteI love how part of your definition of success is proving people wrong. Sometimes overcoming the adversity people throw at us is a success in itself. Sometimes life makes it so difficult to achieve our goals, but that only increases the satisfaction we gain from those achievements. What you said about passion is so beautiful, and so true. Setting out to succeed in any area is great, but without loving the journey, the success is meaningless.
Mimi:
I swear I didn’t read your post before I wrote mine! When it comes to the idea of success, we just have the same mind (except that yours is much more intelligent and less scatterbrained than mine is). I love the idea of success being defined as being able to look back at your past and determining if you’re happy with the way things turned out. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize success, and we don’t truly appreciate our accomplishments until much later on down the line.
Dom:
I like that you really stressed the idea of success being different for every person. People tend to judge others based on their own success-o-meters (as you call them), but we can’t really determine the success of an individual until we understand their desires and passions. You’re right that it’s sort of beautiful that people’s ideas of success are all so different. Can you imagine how boring life would be if we all strived for exactly the same goals?
Nick M. - How interesting that you'd say long-term success is the only true kind of success. I'm not dissing your point, but what about achievements on a smaller scale? Are they considered successes or just 'achievements'?
ReplyDeletePatrick - your blog spoke to the point that I thought most would - that happiness holds a great deal of weight as far as success goes. Although sometimes I consider happiness and success to be entirely different, I really do agree with your point. Oh and i'm glad you told your friend what's up because nobody should go on thinking in such a way!
Becca - You definitely share a view-point that we all have described in some way, and that is the typical image of success from an AP kid point of view. But what about the people who you and I wouldn't necessarily consider successful but who have reached their own sought-out goals? Are they still successful? Is the measure of success in the eye of he who succeeds or of those around him? I think that is the direction that my blog went in.
Dan: I never really saw success as a state of mind. I suppose if we set our own goals, and success is achieving them, then yes. But success isn’t always a state of mind. If we want to appear successful in other’s eyes, then it definitely isn’t. Well, it kind of is, but that success would be the common state of mind.
ReplyDeleteTed: I don’t remember much about “It’s a Wonderful Life,” besides Jimmy Stewart. That was him, right? Anyways, considering friends a success is something even I didn’t think about. And friendship’s been a common theme in most of my blogs. It’s like I’m a children’s cartoon, always trying to teach those stupid lessons day in and day out.
George: Honestly, I felt like I was reading a pamphlet for a get-rich-quick scheme. In that annoying salesman’s voice. It was hilarious. Anyways, you did touch upon some interesting points, like being successful, rather than just success. I mean, is being successful having many hallmarks? I’m sure it could mean just having one success. If I happen to get home early, and that was the goal, I’m successful. So, sure, it can be many successes, as you described, but also just a mere singular success.
Success is the achievement of one’s goals, and a successful person in life is someone who has reached where they want to be in life. The only hallmark of success is happiness. Big houses, nice cars, and all that materialistic stuff are not always signs of success. If a person that had always aspired to be rich grew up to be extremely wealthy, this person still is not guaranteed to be successful. This person would only be successful if they were truly happy with their life. For those who equate money with happiness, having money means they are successful. But for those who value things like family would need a nice family to be successful. So basically, success is measured by happiness and the feeling of accomplishment. So the more happy and accomplished you feel about your life, the more successful you are.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I do think that there are different levels of success. You can very well be successful in things smaller in scale than life. A person is successful in school for example, if they are happy with their standing in school. Clearly, it is much easier to be successful in smaller things than in bigger things like life.
The factors that lead one’s success depends on what they value. In order for me to be satisfied in life. and thus successful, I would need to have enough money to have my own house and to life comfortably. However, I don’t care for anything extravagant, so money and success aren’t completely linked together in my world. The other thing I’d need to feel successful would be love. (Wow, I feel so ridiculously cheesy for saying this.) I don’t know why, but I feel like it would be impossible for me to be fully happy with my life without it. Unless I changed my mind about wanting it for some reason. Additionally, I’d need to have an impact on the world to feel successful. I’m not asking to single-handedly stop the world from ending. I just want to have helped a bit somehow. I’d like to save a life, or several. These are the big things I’d need to accomplish. Overall, to be successful, I’d need to be just happy in general. I’d have to be happy with not only the big things, but all the little things in life, too.
I’m actually surprised that I could only think of a few main “needs” for myself to feel successful. I suppose I’m not that greedy.
I’d also like to mention that success doesn’t come quickly. It’d be hard to say that a 16-year-old is completely happy with where they are in life, especially since they have barely even experienced it yet. I’d say that success usually isn’t reached until a person has already lived at least one-third of their life. Success is far, far away from where I am now. (Which is actually pretty depressing to think about.) But I think I’ll make it there. One day I will.
Dan: “A person is only successful if he thinks that he is successful. Success is a state of mind, rather than a physical or social state.” That sums it up perfectly. That was pretty much the message I was trying to get across in my post, although I may have failed. Also, I found the part where you mentioned calculus oddly funny. (Oh calculus...)
Amber: Your post was hilarious. But I was actually surprised when I read your reply to Mike about optimism. Didn’t you write that whole paper about being pessimistic in Mrs. Rock’s class freshman year? I’m not trying to call you out at all, and I know everyone has changed a ton from two years ago. But I was honestly surprised! I suppose secretly, it was embedded in my mind that you were a super-pessimist or something. I’m sorry Amber!
Nick Murphy: My definition of success is far different from yours, but I still found your post interesting. You have a good point - having few obligations sounds pretty darn sweet. When I first saw what you said about the people who read “success” books, I thought it was a bit extreme. But I thought about it, and I see what you’re saying. People really wouldn’t read those books unless they were worried about their turnout in life.
Oh my, oh my. This one everyone seems to agree on.
ReplyDeleteExcept Mike, I guess. But he's wrong.
(I'm just kidding, Mike.)
I think a successful person achieves their goals. I can't say I think there's much more to it than that. Hallmarks of a successful person include...
Now Mike told me at lunch happiness comes with the journey and not the destination, and that happiness isn't achieved with success. But I don't think I can think of anything who achieves their own personal goal and isn't happy that they achieved it. I don't mean the cirumstances surrounding the achievement. You can win a war and be sad that so many people died, but you'll still be happy you won the war.
Set a goal.
Achieve it.
You're happy you achieved it, right? Huh.
Tiers of success I think would apply to how arduous the task is, how hard it is to reach success in that particular instance.
I think of myself as successful when I'm happy with what I'm doing, more or less. I'm not really trying to parse success here, I kind of feel like it's a matter of emotion. You KNOW when you've been successful. It's subjective, you know? Thoreau was successful even if he wasn't rich or anything. A hobo is successful if he can catch a train to the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
But as long as you're happy with it, then it's all good.
Success- The accomplishment of ones goals and aspirations. It is impossible for everyone to have the same same definition of success because every individual has their own set of goals. For one person it could be a large goal that they desire to accomplish, while for another person it could be the little small accomplishments that they deem success. An individual's success can range from going to school and acing a vocab test, to cooking your first meal, to graduating from high school. All of these events can make you a successful person. I think everyone can be successful in their own way. It could be about money or about more personal things, success is what makes you happy. If money makes a person feel good about yourself, then sure they can be a successful person.
ReplyDeleteIf, from the start, your goal in life was to be wealthy and important and you accomplished that goal, you are successful because you did what you wanted to do. You did what made you happy. I once believed that success had ONLY to do with money and wealth. But I now believe that success actually has to do with being happy with myself. Even though money makes me happy, i have realized that its deeper than that. Success means Being happy with all of the choices you've made and all of the people you have affected is what makes you a successful person. Doing everything that YOU want to do, makes you a successful person. Getting everything that you possibly can out of life, makes you successful.
When you're an old and wrinkly 80 year old and you look back on your life, do you have a smile on your face? If you answered yes, congratulations you have won a successful life. If you believe that you lived a happy, regretful life, i think you can go and pat yourself on the back because you are a success. I don't think that i can actually say if i have accomplished success yet because my life has actually just begun. I think the only time you can say whether or not you were successful, is when your life is near the end. When you are dying, you can honestly say whether or not you got everything that you wanted out of life. I think when i am dying and i look back at my life and see no regrets, i will die with a smile on my face because i will know that i had a successful life.
Success is when you achieve a goal. My goal is to do this blog. I am doing this blog. I accomplished my goal. I succeeded. Success is simple. It really isn't that complicated. You are successful if you believe you are successful. It all depends on what side of the boat you're on. If you want to fail and do, you are successful. Maybe my goal is to not do this blog. Then I would fail, because I'm doing it. I guess I could be partially successful. That's only if I have a tiered goal. For example, I want to pass all my AP exams. I have 4 of them. Let's say I get all 3s and one 2. Ehhh I passed three of them. I was close to my goal. To me, I still succeeded. Now let's say I get two 3s and two 4s. I succeeded, and did better than just passing. If I get all 5s, I still succeeded, but to a much higher level. Let's say my goal was to bomb all my exams. I get all 1s. I am a success. Success is too simple to be described in depth. People over-think it and make it seem like a big, important, hard-to-understand thing. Anyone can succeed and it's not that hard. Just say you succeeded and you did.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird that i have the same view on library books. A book store is always a million times better than a library, seemingly, just because they're fresh, new, no gross plastic covering, basically everything about them is better!
ReplyDeleteSelf-help books are a joke, they're classified into that group because someone tells you how to live your life better. Well why are they called SELF-help books if you need someone else to help you? Makes no sense.
My definition of success if not measured through quantification, but through one's own personal goals and thoughts. Success is when you feel true jubilation and personal achievement. Success isn't measured by trophies, ribbons, or even thick wallets. It's measured my smiles, laughs, ya know, the good stuff. It's safe to say that you're successful in life when you can sit back and just enjoy life with your friends and family. You're a success when you've finally achieved an ultimate goal of happiness.
There are definitely different levels of success based on different events in one's lifetime. If life pulls you along on the expected track, there's going to be ups and downs, but as longs as the ups are comparatively better than how bad the downs are, you're golden!
The things you need to have don't have a monetary value to them. Like i said before, it's measured through love, happiness, laughter, good family, and things of that sort. Those are the things you need to be successful, not money or beautiful homes and cars.
For me to find myself a success, i do what i love and that's to laugh, and do a lot of that. I spend time with my family and friends, and i just do things that i enjoy doing. I'm as successful now at this stage in my life as i'll ever be just based on that!
Schuyler: Your response... I totally agree with it. I really disagreed with Mikey's also. Happiness is the destination. I will be sitting in a rocking chair when I'm 90 smiling away to how I was successful. When I was trying to achieve my goal, I was pissed, tired, and stressed the hell out. Why would I be happy during it? Everyone's goal in AP classes is to get a 5. Is everyone happy at this time of day, doing RRLs and TSTDs?? Doing hours of homework for a simple number and letter? They will be happy when they see that A+ and 100 and a 5 on their exam. You'll be happy in the end.
ReplyDeleteMikey G: lol.. so Schuyler's applied to you sooo.. I really disagreed with yours. Happiness IS the destination. I will be sitting in a rocking chair when I'm 90 smiling away to how I was successful. When I was trying to achieve my goal, I was pissed, tired, and stressed the hell out. Why would I be happy during it? Everyone's goal in AP classes is to get a 5. Is everyone happy at this time of day, doing RRLs and TSTDs?? Doing hours of homework for a simple number and letter? They will be happy when they see that A+ and 100 and a 5 on their exam. You'll be happy in the end.
ReplyDeleteWebster's dictionary defines success as "favorable or desired outcome".
ReplyDeleteJust Kidding!
Ok so success to me is simple. If you put your all into something, and everything you get back is worth what you put in, you are successful. Success can be improvement, it can be from starting anew, it can come from reaching a goal, it can be anything you want it to be. Personally, I don't believe I'm successful until I go beyond what my personal goals are. I'm successful in reaching my goals, but not successful as a person in general. For example, I'm failing calc right now. My personal goal is to get up to an 80 by the end of the marking period. Would getting an 80 truly be successful? I would have reached my desired goal. However, I believe I can only be successful if I get an A this marking period. That, to me, would be true success.
Like I said, I believe no one is successful until they surpass their goals. But that doesn't mean set your goals low either. Don't set a goal to say, "Man I can do this easily," because then it's not a goal! A goal should be something that you have to work vigorously at to achieve, not something used to boost your confidence. Don't get me wrong, confidence boosters can be very helpful to achieving goals, but if you want a confidence booster, then set it for something small, like a simple test while your goal is a specific grade for the entire marking period.
The next definition I could explain is being successful at reaching something. Success is different from this because success would be going above and beyond, as I said before. However, being successful at reaching something is completely different. This term has more of a literal meaning where you literally reach something you wished to reach. I believe being successful is the step before true success; just like bliss comes before happiness. Success has to start with something, and that something would be being successful in something. It could be as trivial as winning an event in your sport, but that will lead you to your path of success.
I don't think I'll ever really come to a conclusion that I am a success. Like I said, I will agree that I have been successful in things, but I have also failed, like everyone else in the world. If I ever tell myself I am a success, I believe that comes with being finished. When you are a true success, you can just stay where you are and not have to work at one thing ever again. As nice as this sounds, it means you will be stuck in one place, and I don't want that. I want to move forward in everything I do as much as possible. By telling myself I am not a true success, I can continue setting goals and continue being successful at those goals for my quest to finally become a success.
So I guess in conclusion you can say success is a noun. You are a success, success never comes to you. You have to become one, and work hard to do so.
Olivia- What will all those things listed(barring a few exceptions on there) do for you in the long run? Who cares that you have a nice car when you have a good family? Who cares how much money you have if you know how to have a good time? For me, that's more important and that's the ultimate achievement.
ReplyDeleteConnie- I think we have similar ideas in our beliefs of success. Although i didn't necessarily include it, i belief a sense of pride is definitely a key to someone's ultimate success.
Mikey Black- You totally underplayed the term success, so much that it's ridiculous actually. I understand where you're coming from that one decides their own success, but it's more than a big deal. It's the biggest of deals. Isn't it the ultimate goal in life to succeed everything or as much of what you can?
Rachel: I love you idea about success being measured by the effect on others. I never really thought of it in an environmental way though.
ReplyDeletePat: I do really like the idea of happiness equating success. But happiness is such an ambiguous and fleeting feeling. I find it hard to define success through happiness because the feeling is often founded on unfounded emotion.
As a whole: Everyone seems to have a similar definition of success. Basically, we hate money and won't let it define us. But, how many of us truly think this way? Aren't we instilled to believe that we're going to college so we can make a lot of money because money will make us happy? Ah, capitalism.
Amber: Suces. Doesn't really work. You always need double the c, double the s. Wouldn't it be triple the s?? Now I forget what I was going to say. Gotta go reread.. -__- Oh yes, standards. Instantly I think of Dan. Hmmm I don't know, I didn't consider it when I wrote my post. I think you should set your goals and adjust them as you go and realize things are impossible. Still consider the high ones, just lower them a bit. You will succeed in the end. Everyone does. It's all about how you think about it.
ReplyDeleteJanel - I like how you figure that success means taking responsibility for your own actions, and, I infer, going the extra mile while not necessarily taking credit. Success is being true to one's self.
ReplyDeleteTom - Hey, money's pretty awesome. That being said, just try to get the best education as is possible, without being scammed by the big-league colleges. You'll be just fine.
Ted - I like how you agreed with me. That was nice. I also like how while you say that success equals happiness, we don't need to be financially or proprietorially successful to be happy.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to give my definition of success, I guess I’d say that
success is when you accomplish something-it’s when you do something and are
pleased and content with the outcome.
Based on this definition, the only real hallmark of success
would be a person’s happiness. Of course I’ve come to associate other things
with success. Money, confidence, stability. These are just a few things that
come to mind when I think of characteristics of a successful person. I guess I
would judge whether a person was successful based off those three main
guidelines, with happiness thrown in. But really, based on my own definition,
the only person who should be able to judge the success of each person is
themselves.
Obviously there are different levels of success. There is the
success you feel when you write a really good paper, when you master something
you’ve been working on for awhile, when you get all your chores accomplished,
when you are content with your life in general. All of these occasions of
success have different levels of importance-the success you feel about being
happy in life will greatly outweigh the success you feel after acing a test.
But at the same time, each level of success is important. It is the small
successes that happen daily that keep people motivated and working on bigger
goals and dreams.
For me to feel successful, I would have to accomplish all the
major things I want to happen in my life (owning my own house, marriage,
children, etc.) and be financially stable in a way that allows me to live comfortably.
I wouldn’t have to be super rich (though it would be nice) or solve world
hunger to consider myself a successful person. I think that in the end, to
really and truly consider myself a successful person, I would have to find my
purpose in the world-the place I fit best and where I can contribute the most.
If I can do that, I think that would be the ultimate success for
me.
Rachel: “These are all irrelevant.” While I can see your point
in what you wrote, I can’t say that I really agree with you. Based on your own
definition, if you desire to get into Harvard because you feel that you will
get the most of what you are looking for in terms of knowledge, etc. then I
would say that getting into Harvard would be a definite success. Sometimes it isn’t
so much emotional dependency on things like high paychecks, but the desire to
be able to provide yourself with things you may have longed for your entire
life. Maybe the sort of lifestyle you desire just happens to involve high
paychecks and fancy cars. Just a thought.
Matt: I love how you start with talking about how love is an
ambiguous term, meaning different things to different people, then describe how
these different people are “wrong”. Anyways, “The people who remember us for the
impact we’ve created, and the memories that we leave truly decide whether our
lives have been a “success.” I love this line. I was thinking along these lines
when I said in my own post that success comes with finding where you best fit
in, but I think you said it better than I inferred it. I definitely agree that success isn’t
dictated by our possessions.
Dan: I think you could benefit from the use of more vocab
words…especially in that first sentence! Haha. On a serious note, I love love
love “A person is only successful if he thinks that he is successful. Success
is a state of mind, rather than a physical or social state.” I completely and
totally 100 percent agree with this. I think I sort of circumvented this
throughout my own response, but in case I’m wrong, well said.
Mikey B: I don't think success is as easy and simple as you made it out to be. I think there is a lot more to success then just "Just say you succeeded and you did." You actually have to succeed at something before you can say you did. It's not something that you just "say", it's all the achievements of your life. I think it has more importance than you gave it. But i kind of get the jist of what you saying. Success can come in little packages like doing a blog.
ReplyDeleteTed: I like how you mentioned that money does connect to success in a way, and you're right it is all subjective. Anyone can have their owen version of success as long as it leads back to happiness.
Janal: I really liked that poem! I understand what you're blog was trying to say and i agree. Success is not one thing, it can come in different sizes and it changes for every person because they have their own views about success. I really like how you said it is personal and no one needs to know about it. Success should be something you do for yourself and not others.
Garret: Obviously your idea of success is very different from mine, but maybe that has to do with me having less than a quarter of your self confidence. That makes be think that self confidence has a large roll in determining success. I think someone who is more self confident will find it easier to be successful and will be happier in life. (Maybe I'm getting a little out of hand).
ReplyDeleteSchuyler: This blog is a perfect example of how blunt you are. I love how to-the-point your arguments are. No matter what the argument, your confidence always makes me believe what your saying. I swear you could make me believe Unicorns are real. But on topic to the subject at hand, I believe you have a point. Reach a goal, your successful. But at the same token, maybe look deeper than that, like to a new level of success.
Hira: You're beyond right. Everyone has different goals, and different views on to the extent they need to go to achieve these goals. If goals are what determine success, then we should all have a different definition of success. However, I think this blog speaks to us as a whole because since we all seem to have the same definition, it shows we all have the same goals. So maybe everyone does have the same definition of success?
Everyone has his/her own definition of success. "To each their own"-success is a word that can mean anything one wants it to. If someone feels that they are successful because they did well on a test, then so be it. If they feel success because they completed a homework assignment, they are (believe it or not) allowed to.
ReplyDeleteMyself, I believe that success is the feeling I get when I achieve something that I set out to complete. I'm always being told that in order to be successful in life, it's necessary to have a career that not only pays well, but that's also enjoyable. It's one thing to finish college and have a well paying job, but to do that job for the rest of my life and be unhappy, is not a path I want to take.
As I said, there are great variations of success. Depending on the person, it can range anywhere between completing a chore, or earning your masters degree. Success is situation and always will be.
I have a long way to go in order to consider myself successful. As of this blog post, I have aspirations to be attend American University. My grades and SAT scores aren't up to par with the colleges "requirements" yet. I will truly feel a degree of success if I get accepted. After, I plan to major in economics and have a career in that field; another degree of success. Just being happy in life will I achieve my ultimate goal of success.
George: I disagree with the fact that you mentioned having "many personal friends" as a level of being successful. The majority of the people we know as kids, we won't know as adults. I guarantee I won't know most of the people that take this class after college, or even during college. If you had said that
meeting many people is a form of succession, I would've agreed with you more. The more people you meet, the more opinions you can garner and can become more knowledgeable-in my opinion.
Becca: I enjoyed your statement about how you take AP classes for your own personal amusement. You like gaining information, and you're not doing it for the "prestige-ness" that comes along with it.
Cole: The thing I like about reading your posts, is the fact that I can practically hear your voice in your post. It's a little weird, but true. Particularly in your second paragraph relating to sustenance, fairly humorous.
I often create situations in my head, events that I wish would happen. I basically imagine how I would like the entire rest of my life to pan out. If what I imagine was to become reality, I would definitely consider myself successful, because that's all success really is, "accomplishing your goals" as everyone has already stated. However, even if things don't happen exactly as planned, I can still be successful. I know that I can be, because success is judged by happiness. As long as I'm happy, I know I must be doing something right.
ReplyDeleteSuccess, in my mind, is more complex than simply achieving goals though. I feel that a person's goals should have criteria, because an aspect of success is trying to reach something, and that something, by default, has to be a sort of standard. My standard for goals is that that buildup and ultimate result of your goals should have a positive influence on someone/thing other than yourself.
For example, in my dream life, I'm a high school teacher who is also the colorguard instructor, I have three kids and a husband who is my best friend. All before I'm 32. Sounds pretty simple and not too substantial. However, I want to be a teacher in order to correct all the mistakes all of my past teachers have made, as well as emulate those teachers who have truly touched me. I would like kids like myself, and you guys, to be able to experience life and knowledge in a different way than most schools offer. (So basically what Bunje does for us. :) ) I want to be a mother because there is nothing more rewarding than loving and being loved in return. In having children I am giving birth to love, which is something our world definitely needs more of. Finally, I feel that I need a husband to be successful because that means that I've found someone who I truly enjoy and someone who truly enjoys me. Having a husband means that I have touched someone's life in such a way that they are willing to make me the most important person in their life, for the rest of their life.
Contrarily, say that someone's goal was to offer a kid coke so the kid will get hooked and start buying it off of said person. Just because you achieve that goal, does not mean you are successful in the sense of life. Yeah, you were successful in accomplishing your goal, but there is no success in ruining a person's life.
And maybe that is where the different "levels" of success occur. It depends on what percentage of your goal was achieved, along with the intent of the goal. The highest being a perfectly executed, absolutely selfless goal that causes positive feelings within the actor, and I'm still undecided on whether the lowest is someone who barely accomplished a completely malicious goal, or who an individual who completed a completely malicious goal.
Rachel: I wonder if before writing this, if someone were to point out a homeless person and say "Do you think they are successful?" would you say "quite possibly, yes" or immediately think otherwise? I feel that for the majority of us, when writing these blogs we formulate well thought out opinions that we labor over in our minds, but once in the real world where thought no longer seems as valuable, we contradict ourselves. And I say thought no longer seems as valuable, in the sense that people more often react instead of act.
ReplyDeleteSchuyler: I totally agree with the idea that happiness is what signifies success. I honestly thing that happiness is the most important part of success. Also, I didn't know that Candy Mountain was reachable by train.
Garret: I appreciate your opinion on self help books. They really are the most asinine things around. I also like how you said "I do what I love and that's to laugh". To institute the use of a gerund, laughing is also my favorite, and it really does make life so much more bearable and worth living.
Nick the Murph: I dunno, I feel like any kind of success is success. It can be a small goal or a big one.
ReplyDeleteCole: See, you've got the idea I'm thinking of. Success isn't some life encompassing thing, though in can be. Success is EVERY achievement, even all the little ones along the way.
Olivia: See, you have a list of things you use to determine your success. I just use my own feelings towards the matter. I guess I'm like my own barometer.
Matt: Woahwoah, just read your response. Who said I hate money? I love money. Can money define me? No, I don't think so, but I would not at all mind a synonym of Schuyler being 'almost sickeningly rich'. Anyone who would tell me I can't accomplish more if I were rich than I can right now, well, they're just not being practical. I love money.
ReplyDeleteLet me live in regal splendor
With that loving legal tender
Give me money, money, money.
(And if they ever made trees out of Pluribus Unum,
ReplyDeleteI would be the one to go out and prune 'em.)
A lot of the replies here to mine, like Ted's, Schuyler's, and Mikey Black's I have no better way of explaining my stand point than that of the article "Is Everybody Happy?" on page 100 of Bunje's book. I think that that article best explains how happiness is achieved. We can agree to disagree, but overall this blog is about success. Success IS found more within the pursuit if you actually look past the surface of a goal and see the immense amount of knowledge that is obtainable in the pursuit of a goal. I've experienced this first hand and there's no doubt that you did too. In every adventure there is a large amount that one can learn and I hope that nobody ever spends their whole life without coming to this realization. Mikey, you may not be happy with the amount of work that we have from taking AP classes, but in this work you actually learn on the necessary information that it takes to get that 5 on the AP exam. If your goal in an AP class is to only get a 5, then you're in the wrong class. These classes are designed to teach you a lot more about life and the subject that you are taking than the information that you will be tested on in May. I rest my case.
ReplyDeleteIf you gain all the knowledge in the pursuit of the goal, than wouldn't you have all the knowledge at the culmination of a goal? Compare taking a school course: throughout the year, you think 'Wow, I'm learning an awful lot!' At the end of the course, however, you've learned everything. The goal is the cumulative value of your effort, it's where everything comes together and real success occurs. You're not successful until you've passed the final test.
ReplyDeleteIf happiness and success really was in the pursuit of some goal, why doesn't everyone just half pursue whatever goals they're after and then drop out halfway? They'd be able to pursue more things that way, and ergo they'd be happier and more successful, too.
Right?
Wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe fault in your argument is that in taking a course you cannot possibly learn everything about that course. If you want to be truly successful you must continue to pursue past that goal. Ergo, the pursuit still leads you to more success. In the pursuit you learn more than what is on that test, therefore you are more successful.
If you half pursue a goal, then you only obtain half of what you would learn by the time you reached that goal. There is obviously a large difference between learning a lot about one thing than only knowing a little of two things. I would take the pursuit of one goal as far as I possibly can before I give up on it.
Furthermore, since your overall goal is happiness in a lot of your argument, please take a look at that passage I mentioned before. It will show how there is no concrete test for happiness. Obviously you can be pretty happy with a 5 on the AP test, but you can't say that there is a test out there that measures the happiness of someone. When reach your goal you are happy. You are not happy because you reached your goal, and you should not stop reaching forward. You are happy because the path you took to reach your goal led to great results. That 5 alone is only useful enough to give you credit in some colleges, the knowledge learned along the way is useful for life.
By your definition there IS no goal, anywhere, because you should always be moving past it. By your definition success CAN'T be a goal because the goal is always moving to the other end of the field. I don't think this is true. I think a goal is a landmark, and when you reach it you are successful and happy. If you want to put another landmark down somewhere ahead that's your choice.
ReplyDeleteIf someone pursues a course, e.g. getting a 5 on the test and, having gotten a 5 on the test, says they are successful, you can't say they aren't. Moving past that GOAL is entirely optional. Besides this, the pursuit of a goal seems entirely subjective to me. If a man is searching for a star in the night sky, how do you measure how successful he is along the way? The only real measure of success is the completion of a goal, unless you outline mini goals along the path, which themselves are still goals.
I never said happiness was the objective, only that no one who achieved a goal they wished to achieve would be unhappy. You have a goal. Achieving the goal yields happiness. Happiness is not the objective, just a side effect. I don't need to measure the happiness of anyone to measure success, just that they reached a goal they'd set out for themselves.
By my definition, there is a goal. If it happens to be a tangible goal, which isn't always the case, then you are able to achieve that goal but should go above and beyond that goal if you want to reach true success.
ReplyDeleteAs Mikey said before, the 5 on the test is just a number. You surely can't argue the fact that the part of the goal that makes the success is that in order to reach that 5 you must have learned a lot about that area of study. The 5 is just the highest limit that the test has as to how much you know in the field. That information and skills that you are test on is not exhausted and clearly you should not be concerned with being taught to the test.
Now when looking to the sky to find a star, you're goal is indeed to find that star. However, if you begin to study the patterns of that star and those around it in the night sky in order to find that star you have then learned much about the constellations around it and have found a tool that you can use to track that star forever to the point that you will never be able to lose it again. You've reached your goal, but it's like that old saying where if you teach a man to fish then they'll never starve. If you give a man that fish you then he has then achieved his goal of getting a fish. If you teach him how to fish, then the process in which he gets that fish will make him more successful.
Am I right here? Or do you honestly believe that him just getting that one fish is more successful than him getting the ability to catch however many fish he wants?
In regards to happiness. If your chief goal in life is happiness, as I believe that everyone would like to be happy in life, then how do you achieve that happiness. Once that goal is reached you have been successful correct? So please tell me, how do you become happy?
I still stand firm in the fact that you can have a goal and upon reaching that goal you become happy. If my goal is to jump through a ring of fire. Simple as that, I want to just jump through a ring of fire. And in the process I catch on fire, then am I happy? While leaping through the air to enter the ring I may be smiling that my goal is about to be achieved. When I enter the ring, thus achieving my goal, I automatically start screaming in a rather unhappy way because my hair and clothes are on fire. I achieved my goal, and when I reached the goal I am unhappy. As I pursued my goal I was happy though. And to continue this in a more metaphoric way, if I possibly pushe pass my goal, maybe through the use of a metal stool that was on my way through the hoop, and I decided to go beyond my goal, then will I not be even happier with the outcome than if I just achieved my goal? After the continue push passed my goal I lift up ever so slightly so I don't touch the fire, I then have no reason to be unhappy.
Maybe it is just me, but when I set a goal I don't want tangible results. I want to continue to push because I'm not a slacker. I don't want to one day be remembered as the kid who got the 5 on the APs in high school. I want to be remembered as the person who went as far as he possibly can in life, in the process learning wonderful things, meeting amazing people, and doing marvelous achievements. That's when people say, man that kid that I knew was really successful. All of that will occur in a life-long pursuit, not in one goal.
The 5 on the test isn't just a number, it's the knowledge that you've successfully learned and integrated all the knowledge throughout the year. Even if you learned everything fine you wouldn't know if you'd been successful if you didn't have a goal to reach, and that 5 is it. It is the sum of all your knowledge learned throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I'm speaking in terms of pure success here. Just pure success. What is success: reaching a goal. I don't care if the fish-man never gets another fish in his life, I'm arguing that 1. Getting the fish was a success and I suppose 2. He is happy about it. Sure the path you take has other consequences before and after the success, but I'm just defining success here, and my definition is the completion of a goal. If the man who can't fish gets a fish, and that was his goal, he's successful. Besides, both of the things you've described are means to an end. The stargazer isn't successful until he sees the star, nor the fisherman until he catches the fish. You can 'work' on those goals all your life, but you will never be successful if, at some point, you don't actually catch a fish. You, though, are saying the journey is a success.
I don't care how you become happy, either. That's not what I was arguing. I WILL argue that completing a goal you set out to achieve will make you happy, but I'm not saying that's all happiness is or that's the only way to get it. Talk about happiness another time. Bunje will put up a blog on it sometime.
With the thing about the hoop, you are obviously not reaching the goal you desired. The goal was to get through the ring UNHARMED, and if you didn't say that to yourself then either you ignored it as implicit or else you DID want to get burned.
You're saying you want to meet amazing people, be marvelous, etc. This is fine. You can go for this. You can be happy doing this. I'm not denying that. But you will not be SUCCESSFUL until you meet these people, or have been marvelous.
That's basically all I'm saying. The success is with the completion of a goal. You can be happy along the way, but you won't be successful until the goal is reached. Goals differ for everyone, but you have to reach them to be successful.
Basically.
The 5 does not test an exhaustive knowledge of the course, I stand by that fact. If you say that it measures your success than I will say that it only measures your success to an extent and that in your pursuit of the five and you achieve it, then you became successful (by your definition here) when you obtained the knowledge and skill to obtain the five. That does not come on test day or when you get the results my friend. It occurs in the pursuit on before the day of the test.
ReplyDeleteI too am speaking of pure success, not achieving a goal, but pure success. Pure success being the most honest and true sense of feeling successful. This, if you are a person who wants to go far in life, should not stop at a goal. Maybe I'm wrong about you Schuyler, maybe you only do stuff to finish a task, but I'm trying to let you see the light that there is more to success than simply reaching your goals. When you reach a goal, sure thing, you do feel pretty successful. But the work that it took to reach that goal, if done to the best of your ability, shall lead to more success. That is what I'm getting at here. That the process that it takes to reach a goal, if you put enough effort into it (not just enough to get by), will make you more succesful than just achieving that goal.
This applies with the fish, for if you teach him how to catch one he WILL catch more than just one. He will eat more and be more successful in his quest. He will be happy about it because he has the ability to get fish without having to worry about having to beg someone else for more fish. He will no longer have to worry. He now, since he took the time to get fish the right way, have to worry and can enjoy his fish that he now has. That is the feeling of success. What made him, as well as the stargazer, successful is that in the process of achieving their goal they learned. They will be happy and feel accomplished with their initial goal accomplished, but they will feel successful before they reach their goal knowing that now they can do even more.
I only am arguing happiness because of the fact that to me happiness is a goal and it is the best way to show how not all goals are tangible.
My use of the flaming hoop is showing the point that I was trying to make. Kudos to you for figuring out that point Schuyler. When trying to achieve a goal, for instance that goal of winning a war that we previously discussed, you do not always end up with successful results. The success of achieving a goal may put you in a worse situation than you were already in. Like the hoop, if you just push towards the initial goal of making it through the hoop, you can get burned. If you run a war just so you win but in the process you do not plan ahead, learn from mistakes, and you do not put yourself in a position to be more successful, than you will win the war, be happy at first, and then you will find yourself in either a financial down turn or go home to see that your family is all dead.
Now Schuyler, please tell me if that is success. According to your definition, it is achieving a goal. But in the long run, if in the process you do not do what you can to secure your family and you come home to find them dead because of this. Are you really successful? You may not find the success of winning the war yet in the process of putting yourself in a better situation before achieving that goal. You will however be able to go into achieving you goal feeling successful in the fact that you have nothing to worry about.
Can you at least see how in the process of reaching a goal you can set yourself up to become successful and be able to become successful in the process? That's what I'm getting at. I'm not arguing that you can't feel successful when you achieve a goal. I would be a fool. I am arguing that in the pursuit of a goal you can become even more successful.
I don't say the five measures much of anything besides getting being good at the AP Test, but getting a five is a success. I know that much. The five doesn't MEASURE success, it IS a success. And no, you're not successful when you obtain the knowledge and skill to get a five, just as you're not successful when you gain the knowledge to catch a fish. You must DO these things to become successful.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I think there is more to LIFE than reaching your goals, but I don't think there's more to SUCCESS than reaching your goals. I"m shrinking success down to a minimum here, while you're trying to expand it to a maximum. And in your second paragraph you say 'when you complete a goal you feel successful, but the KNOWLEDGE and SKILL you needed to reach that goal will lead to more success'. Does this mean you acknowledge that the knowledge and skill are not the success itself, but the reaching of goals? That's what I'm arguing.
The process can make you more successful, but the process is not success IN AND OF ITSELF. The fisherman catching more fish will be more successful, but the knowledge of catching fish is not evident of his success, the fish themselves are. No one looks at a guy who knows all about fish but doesn't catch any and say 'He's sure successful', they look at the guy who did the act and caught the fish.
If you win a war you end up with successful results. You've won the war, haven't you? I'd be happier than if I lost a war. What nation has NOT been happy that it won a war instead of losing? The dead family is better than the dead everybody. You can be sad the war happened, but you're not sad that it was WON.
Success is achieving a goal. You have A. Succeeded in winning the war, a goal went for, and have B. Failed in the goal of keeping your family alive. So you're successful in one venture but not in another. That's basically it.
I never argued that better planning can lead to more success. That's obvious. You were saying that the planning WAS the success, I say planning LEADS to success, e.g. the goal you wish to achieve. If you plan well you will be successful, if you plan poorly you will not. The success is still the goal completion, though.
So you are stating that learning and becoming better (for lack of a better word) is not successful? I can't see how one can find that as their view. I am trying, but I can't. What makes up the success in a person is what they can bring to a table. Bringing an olympic gold metal in track to the table when someone needs a runner for a team isn't what gets you the job, what gets you the job is the ability that you gained from training in order to get that medal. You cannot achieve a goal without a pathway to get there, no matter how small the pathway. Achieving the goal in the short/easy/cop out method will get you to your goal, but not to the best results. If you take the long route that will make you learn more and become better at achieving the goal you will become more succesful but you have successfully found a way to achieve your initial goal. Your path was a SUCCESS, though the initial end reward was the same. Your journey to the goal is what makes you successful and a person who is better off.
ReplyDeleteI view the act of gaining knowlege as success. I do not make it a goal all the time, but rather my pathway to achieve a goal. Maybe you do not value knowledge and you just want the A at the end, but I want better. I want to one day lay down in my grave and say "Man, I did everything there was worth doing, and I did the best as I could to get there." I don't want to say "Man, I did everything."
You claim that the act of the man getting the fish makes him succesful, I believe that the act of a man learning how to fish makes him successful. We're just going to have to disagree here.
I'm not sad that the war was won. I am sad for the fact that it could have had better results if I planned it out better. It could still have been won without the family being lost. So think, you can WIN and not be sad that your family is DEAD, if you had a more successful journey to the end of the war and searched for more along the way than just victory.
You misinterpret my standpoint in the process of this argument. Heck, that wouldn't be the first time. I however, am not arguing that the planning was success. I am saying that the method in which you reach a goal is a success, because before you reach your goal you have done everything in your power to receive the best results. This cannot be defined simply by saying that you acheived many goals in the process. The reason why is that some of these "goals" may not have been something you thought of, just results of the way things were carried out. A goal of yours is something in which you did think of and plan towards, correct? That is what I'm saying. You achieve more not in your initial goal, but in the process in which you did achieve it.
I'll end this argument with that old saying of Edison. "I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb."
And there you go. He learned a lot in the process, even through failing. His knowlege along the way was a success to him. Even though Edison didn't invent the light bulb you can't say he wasn't successful.
No, becoming better and better is not success. Success needs to be some tangible line you can draw where you can say 'I did it. This is what I was striving for, and I did it.' Success is not some aura that flies with you while you're studying, success is the act of applying that knowledge and getting a result. You can achieve greater success through planning better, but the planning is not the success, it is the eventual endpoint.
ReplyDeleteAchieving knowledge can be a goal. That's why I read books. I like to learn things. If my goal is to learn something and I read about it and study it, voila, I've completed my goal. If I'm running a race, though, I don't count every foot a success. I count the end a success, because I've done it.
I don't care how much you achieve in your preparation to your goal, if they're not goals it doesn't count as a success. Many short term goals comprise a longer term goal, yes, but they are all goals. You can be successful at each of them. Planning can make you more successful, but the goal at the end of the day is the act, and that is the success.
I'm still saying you can know how to catch fish, but if you don't catch any you just won't be successful. How can you be? Knowledge requires action, and the completion of the action is the success.
I'll end this argumemt by saying that, uh, Mike... Thomas Edison DID invent the light bulb. He WAS successful. Or, if you want to argue minutia, he invented the modern lighting system/most effective light bulb.
After all, he didn't do all those experimens because he wanted to make a defective light bulb. That wasn't his goal. He was looking, all along, for the right one. And that right one is the success.