What is success? I knew going into this assignment what my idea of success was, but I didn’t know what other people thought on the subject. To me, success, simply put, means feeling successful. Whether or not you perceive yourself as successful can determine if you are or aren’t. There is a lot written out there on the subject of success, and I made some interesting findings.
When I was searching Lexis Nexis to see what kinds of studies and journal articles have been written about success, I was overwhelmed by the digital avalanche of search results, nearly all falling from business and investor publications: Newsweek, Business Week, and The Investors Chronicle, to name a few. One article I found particularly interesting delved into such celebrity money-makers like Donald Trump and Richard Branson (entreprenurial founder of the Virgin businesses-Virgin Mobile, airline/travel business, music, and more). I was interested in reading that article not because I agree with success being entirely financial-based, but because in the world we live in (I mean the ‘Western world’) there is so much emphasis put on being the best, making lots of money, ‘getting to the top’ and oftentimes trampling over your peers to get there.
My father retired last year from a 30-year long career in pharmaceuticals. He has achieved many great successes in his life, but in his career in particular he has achieved great financial success that I pray I can achieve at least half of in my entire life! However, his success is measured in the pride he takes in his work, his children, his hobbies and his relationships. At the end of his career, just before he retired, he was stressed out to the point where he couldn’t even sleep! He was doing great in business and bringing in lots of money, but he was no longer proud of the work he was doing, and everything else was beginning to crumble around him. I won’t get into details, but in the end he retired because he couldn’t handle the toll his work was taking on him, both mentally and physically. So, he quit. Now he spends some of his time leading a private consulting group and most of his time mountain biking, boating, cooking, reading, writing, and spending time with his friends and family. I’ve never seen him in better mental and physical shape, and I know he feels the same way. His favorite thing to preach about is the importance of achieving a balance in life. Upon achieving that, he considers himself successful. I consider him successful, too.
In my life, I haven’t gotten a chance to make financial success yet—I get a monthly allowance from my parents while I am in school for basic things like food, and I babysit three times a week for some extra cash. Talk about minimal funds! But I do have a savings that I contribute to, and I make it work because I know (or hope) that someday I will have more. However, having lots of money doesn’t mean you are successful and being successful doesn’t mean you have lots of money. Regardless of the number staring back at me when I check my bank account balances, I consider myself to be a very successful person, even at a young age. I work hard and play hard, I have great friends, and I keep my relationships alive. I have a balance of self-discipline and weaknesses. I have somewhat of a feel for what I want to do after I graduate from Rider in May, and I’ve had great jobs and internships and subsequently a growing newtork of contacts that can help me get there. I try different things even when they are difficult or scare me, and I have hobbies that I take great pride in. I have positive and negative experiences in my past that I have learned from and therefore treasure. I have goals and dreams that I can’t wait to achieve.
Feeling good about what I do and the decisions I make is on of the most important things I have in my life. The great thing about success is that you don’t have to follow someone else’s definition of success—you can make it your own! To some people, the success they have is shown by the car they drive or the house(s) they have. To some, it is shown in the number of friends they have. To others, it is their ability to argue someone to the death and come out “the winner” of the argument(I just came from babysitting). To me, success is a feeling all my own. I feel successful when I try something that scares me and I come out in the end feeling like I could do it all over again. I feel successful when my sensei (teacher) at karate tells me I grappled the best he’s ever seen me grapple, and that he thinks I’ll be an amazing sempai (black belt) someday. I feel successful when I make The Dean’s List. I feel successful when I look back on fun times spent with my friends and family. I feel successful when the kids I babysit give me a hug when I’m not going to see them for a while. I feel successful looking back on my travels around the world. I feel successful when I think about my internship at Bristol-Myers Squibb this summer, knowing it was a competitive one to get and feeling like I really made a difference working there. I feel successful when I surprise myself with my self-discipline. I feel successful looking back on my relationship with my boyfriend how it ended this summer in the most difficult breakup I’ve ever had, knowing that it was the right thing to do, and knowing that I’ll be OK in the end. Right now, success for me isn’t monetary. It is in the way I feel about my life as a whole.
Not that I wouldn’t love to be wealthy—I visited my friend who works at Mercedes-Benz a few weeks ago and it was after-hours, so the dealership was closed. But we were in the garage where the shiny German cars sat awaiting a detail, polish, or some other glamorous service. Upon laying my eyes on a beautiful, shiny, sporty, black car, I asked my friend if I could just sit in it and start the engine—I just wanted to see how it felt. He handed me the key, that tease, and I took the driver’s seat in the 2008 CL-65 (I don’t know, or really care, what the “CL” or the “65” mean, but it was just plain awesome…as one of the comments says on the MB website, it is “sweet sassy molassey”). As I sat there, I wondered, “am I ever going to have enough money to be able to afford a car like this?” (the starting price of this car is $137,000). The answer is: maybe someday. I would love to have that car, partly because (a) I drive like a bat out of hell and it would be fun to whip that thing around turns and feel like I’m about to lift off into the air when I’m driving a starightaway at God-only-knows-how-many-miles an hour, but partly because (b)the car is a symbol of high status—it demands attention and admiration of both itself and its driver. I don’t think it is a silly thing to desire, because of the emphasis put on success in our culture. But I think success is more than money, more than a car.
To me, success is knowing that you have tried your very best and knowing that you received some gain from doing so. What success is not, is feeling like you have to be successful or feeling like you have to achieve this or that, or comparing yourself to someone else who is ‘successful’—rich, happy, etc. As Katharine Giovanni writes in an article on measuring one’s own success, success is an “inside job”. She uses her own business success as an example. She says that you can have all the money in the world and all the houses in all the beautiful places in the world, but if you do not feel successful on the inside or feel proud of your work, you’ll feel like you are going around in circles, chasing your successes and never catching up to them. If you’re never able to feel success, then it doesn’t exist for you. (It’s kind of like the analogy of the tree falling in the woods when no one’s around: does it make noise when it falls if no one’s there to hear it?)
When I was searching Lexis Nexis to see what kinds of studies and journal articles have been written about success, I was overwhelmed by the digital avalanche of search results, nearly all falling from business and investor publications: Newsweek, Business Week, and The Investors Chronicle, to name a few. One article I found particularly interesting delved into such celebrity money-makers like Donald Trump and Richard Branson (entreprenurial founder of the Virgin businesses-Virgin Mobile, airline/travel business, music, and more). I was interested in reading that article not because I agree with success being entirely financial-based, but because in the world we live in (I mean the ‘Western world’) there is so much emphasis put on being the best, making lots of money, ‘getting to the top’ and oftentimes trampling over your peers to get there.
My father retired last year from a 30-year long career in pharmaceuticals. He has achieved many great successes in his life, but in his career in particular he has achieved great financial success that I pray I can achieve at least half of in my entire life! However, his success is measured in the pride he takes in his work, his children, his hobbies and his relationships. At the end of his career, just before he retired, he was stressed out to the point where he couldn’t even sleep! He was doing great in business and bringing in lots of money, but he was no longer proud of the work he was doing, and everything else was beginning to crumble around him. I won’t get into details, but in the end he retired because he couldn’t handle the toll his work was taking on him, both mentally and physically. So, he quit. Now he spends some of his time leading a private consulting group and most of his time mountain biking, boating, cooking, reading, writing, and spending time with his friends and family. I’ve never seen him in better mental and physical shape, and I know he feels the same way. His favorite thing to preach about is the importance of achieving a balance in life. Upon achieving that, he considers himself successful. I consider him successful, too.
In my life, I haven’t gotten a chance to make financial success yet—I get a monthly allowance from my parents while I am in school for basic things like food, and I babysit three times a week for some extra cash. Talk about minimal funds! But I do have a savings that I contribute to, and I make it work because I know (or hope) that someday I will have more. However, having lots of money doesn’t mean you are successful and being successful doesn’t mean you have lots of money. Regardless of the number staring back at me when I check my bank account balances, I consider myself to be a very successful person, even at a young age. I work hard and play hard, I have great friends, and I keep my relationships alive. I have a balance of self-discipline and weaknesses. I have somewhat of a feel for what I want to do after I graduate from Rider in May, and I’ve had great jobs and internships and subsequently a growing newtork of contacts that can help me get there. I try different things even when they are difficult or scare me, and I have hobbies that I take great pride in. I have positive and negative experiences in my past that I have learned from and therefore treasure. I have goals and dreams that I can’t wait to achieve.
Feeling good about what I do and the decisions I make is on of the most important things I have in my life. The great thing about success is that you don’t have to follow someone else’s definition of success—you can make it your own! To some people, the success they have is shown by the car they drive or the house(s) they have. To some, it is shown in the number of friends they have. To others, it is their ability to argue someone to the death and come out “the winner” of the argument(I just came from babysitting). To me, success is a feeling all my own. I feel successful when I try something that scares me and I come out in the end feeling like I could do it all over again. I feel successful when my sensei (teacher) at karate tells me I grappled the best he’s ever seen me grapple, and that he thinks I’ll be an amazing sempai (black belt) someday. I feel successful when I make The Dean’s List. I feel successful when I look back on fun times spent with my friends and family. I feel successful when the kids I babysit give me a hug when I’m not going to see them for a while. I feel successful looking back on my travels around the world. I feel successful when I think about my internship at Bristol-Myers Squibb this summer, knowing it was a competitive one to get and feeling like I really made a difference working there. I feel successful when I surprise myself with my self-discipline. I feel successful looking back on my relationship with my boyfriend how it ended this summer in the most difficult breakup I’ve ever had, knowing that it was the right thing to do, and knowing that I’ll be OK in the end. Right now, success for me isn’t monetary. It is in the way I feel about my life as a whole.
Not that I wouldn’t love to be wealthy—I visited my friend who works at Mercedes-Benz a few weeks ago and it was after-hours, so the dealership was closed. But we were in the garage where the shiny German cars sat awaiting a detail, polish, or some other glamorous service. Upon laying my eyes on a beautiful, shiny, sporty, black car, I asked my friend if I could just sit in it and start the engine—I just wanted to see how it felt. He handed me the key, that tease, and I took the driver’s seat in the 2008 CL-65 (I don’t know, or really care, what the “CL” or the “65” mean, but it was just plain awesome…as one of the comments says on the MB website, it is “sweet sassy molassey”). As I sat there, I wondered, “am I ever going to have enough money to be able to afford a car like this?” (the starting price of this car is $137,000). The answer is: maybe someday. I would love to have that car, partly because (a) I drive like a bat out of hell and it would be fun to whip that thing around turns and feel like I’m about to lift off into the air when I’m driving a starightaway at God-only-knows-how-many-miles an hour, but partly because (b)the car is a symbol of high status—it demands attention and admiration of both itself and its driver. I don’t think it is a silly thing to desire, because of the emphasis put on success in our culture. But I think success is more than money, more than a car.
To me, success is knowing that you have tried your very best and knowing that you received some gain from doing so. What success is not, is feeling like you have to be successful or feeling like you have to achieve this or that, or comparing yourself to someone else who is ‘successful’—rich, happy, etc. As Katharine Giovanni writes in an article on measuring one’s own success, success is an “inside job”. She uses her own business success as an example. She says that you can have all the money in the world and all the houses in all the beautiful places in the world, but if you do not feel successful on the inside or feel proud of your work, you’ll feel like you are going around in circles, chasing your successes and never catching up to them. If you’re never able to feel success, then it doesn’t exist for you. (It’s kind of like the analogy of the tree falling in the woods when no one’s around: does it make noise when it falls if no one’s there to hear it?)
1 comment:
Wow, what an amazing picture! I have to admit, your picture made me read your blog and I’m really glad I did. I relate to the whole paragraph about your Dad. About 6 years ago, my Dad, worked for a very important company. He was making a great salary, but my family rarely saw him anymore. We were able to go on beautiful vacations, but my Dad was attached to his cell phone. One day, my Dad sat us all down and told us he was leaving his job to become a New York City public school teacher. This was the best decision of his life. My Dad’s happier, healthier, and spends so much time with the family now. It was a big change, but one that defiantly made him more successful to himself and his family.
I really enjoyed reading how you defined success. I, as well, believe success is an inside feeling. Money comes and goes, and yes it’s a great thing to have, but if you can’t enjoy it, what’s good for? See you in class!
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