Socrates Exchange: What is Success?

SUCCESS IS WHEN WE UNDERSTAND THAT REALITY IS DEPENDENT ON PERCEPTION, AND THEN CHOOSE THE REALITY WE WISH TO PERCEIVE.

In relation to this month's topic, I find myself faced with the frustrations of success- will I ever achieve it? What does it take to retain it? I'm a single, young professional (one of the very few left in New Hampshire) and if I've learned anything about my generation it is that we are accustomed to instant gratification ... stimulated by our media outlets, learning styles and the overall pace of today's global economy.

I equate success with personal achievement; have I done enough to leave this world better than I found it? Have I done all I can to protect the environment, do go work, help my fellow man and still maintain a life that is comfortable for my family and me? With the current state of our economy and that hunger for instant gratification, I find myself troubled. Will I ever be successful? Can I have a family and work full time and still afford a home and food on the table?

I wonder if I'm not the only young person living in this expensive state that feels this way, particularly young female professionals with the desire to "do it all."

Best,
Sarah LaPlante
[Say]

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately. I have felt that somehow I am not "ambitious" because I don't' strive to beat the system, leap frog over my colleagues, or argue for promotion. Instead I have focused my life on living it as it comes, making decisions and acting on them, and refining my priorities as I move along. All this means that I have a lovely peaceful home, two amazingly mature and joyful teenagers, and a career that's doing fine. After over 20 years working in this area I am now getting recognition for my experience and value with a raise and promotion to upper management. The slow steady approach to this point feels deeply satisfying because I am so very comfortable with it. There is no sense that I in any way cheated to get to this point. It hasn't been speedy (or financially impressive), but it's authentic and sustainable. This, to me, is success.

For me I think that success is very much a personal definition… As a marathon runner I see success in the person who wins the races, the person who places in their age group, the person who runs a personal best time or the person who just makes it to the finish line hours after the winners have gone home. I’ve also seen my discussion of success change over time. Growing up in working class neighborhood, my parents never had enough money to own a house. As a teenager I equated success with the day I was able to purchase a house of my own. In my twenties, success for me was job related it started with a full-time job in radio to being a producer to being a director to being an Executive Producer. Now at 39 as an Executive Producer and homeowner, success for me is far less about the material and far more about being happy. I define my success today by being happy at what I do both at work and outside of work, that I have incredible people in my life, a wonderful and ever growing vegetable garden and few regrets.

simply to me this means, being who you want to be and being happy in life.

The extended metaphor of a poem is the perfect way to add meaning to an abstract word like "success." Here is a short poem by Cornelius Eady (director of the creative writing program at Notre Dame) that speaks perfectly to the question at hand. It was orginally published in his book Kartunes (1980) and was recently republished in his new & selected, Hardheaded Weather (Putnam 2008):

SUCCESS

I will stop dreaming now,
Now that I've finally made it.
Outside I can hear the wind
Rustling through the leaves of trees.
I own those trees.

Say you are nearing the end of your life. From this vantage point, what will you define as success? Awards, money, promotions, responsibility, accolades? All of these typical measures of success mean nothing once we are gone. I'd argue that success might best be measured by how many people's lives we help make better. For example, a teacher who mentors students to better lives, a doctor who helps patients deal with difficult health issues, a fund raiser who raises money to help less fortunate people, a person with a positive attitude who raises the spirits of all those around her, a Little League coach who makes children feel they are valued regardless of their skill level, a scientist who's discoveries help fight global warming, a neighbor who brings meals those going through hard times, a successful entrepreneur who donates millions to help people in Africa or a parent who raises their children to be happy, confident and secure. If, after you are gone, people remember you for the good you have done or even if they don't remember you, if you have made the world better in some way, then I'd argue that you have been successful in a meaningful way.

Great question. For my father (Durham, native) it was always "Leave the world a prettier place" and if you've ever seen my farm, he certainly succeeded. Given that my web site is www.measuresofsuccess.com I've been asking this question since I started my company. Some of the best answers were: "No resumption of hostilities" -- that was how one Army Public Affairs officer described his measures of success in Bosnia. he explained that if he could just keep people talking, no one else would get killed.
NH Native Susan Hirshberg (Gary's sister) gave me my second favorite: Getting my team out alive. When she was working with the World Bank she was the enforcer who made sure that World Bank funds were actually being spent on education and health and welfare. Not everyone was thrilled with what she was doing, apparently.
Personally, my measure of success is a lot like my fathers: to leave the world a better place -- for Berlin, for my friends and family , and for cancer survivors.

I have been struggling with how to answer this question for almost a week now. I have been going back and forth between thinking that there is a universal answer to this question and thinking that the answer is circumstance-specific. By circumstance-specific, I mean, for example, what makes a day at work a success? Or what makes a first date a success? I have been wondering whether thinking of success as it applies to specific identifiable situations is how to best define "success." After tossing this question around I think I have come to think that "success" for me involves a mix of universal and circumstance-specific thinking, in that to me, "success" has layers.

A successful day at work for me tomorrow would be to attack a stack of paperwork that has been staring at me for weeks, waiting for attention. But in general, in my professional life, no matter what my particular job is, success for me means making a difference in the lives of others. Even if its just one life, even if its just one small positive step forward, that is a result of my work. Similarly, today I considered my yoga practice a success because I was able to do a particular balance pose for the first time ever, even though I only held it for 2 seconds! But in a broader sense, a successful yoga practice for me means being able to integrate the focus, the confidence, the strength and the peace of my yoga practice in the studio into my every-day life outside of the studio.

The result of thinking of success in this way means that it is impossible for me to define in one page or probably even one sitting, because there are so many circumstances to consider, all of which have broader implications. So, "success" to me is layered - it is defineable by minute, hour, day, week, month, year, lifetime, depending on the part of my life to which it applies.

There is a wonderful poem attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson -

Success

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

I feel that sucess is waking up and going to bed 'comfortable in my skin'. For me to be comfortable in my skin, I need to know that I did my best, that I treated others well (or made it right when I didn't), that I have acted with deliberation and consideration.

Of course I want to be materially comfortable, and even more so I want that for my children, but I believe that material wealth is a symptom of success, not the goal. If I am really present and aware and I listen to my conscience and my drive to ambition, it will follow that I will have the things that I need.

Gwen

I called in at the top of the show and offered the notion (attributed to Jacqueline Kennedy) that "If you fail at parenting, nothing else that you do well really matters." I was disconnected soon after.

Chris responded (from what I could hear) by asking "what about a situation where parents must work two or three jobs just to eek out a living?" I don't think this addresses the quote. If you're working two or three jobs, you're not really having much success in your field, are you? The quote speaks to those ambitious people who DO achieve success AT THE EXPENSE of their families.

So, what does success mean to me? It means that, first of all, I was a good dad to my two kids. They grew up healthy, well educated, feeling loved, nurtured, valued, and guided along a path toward independent persuit of their own notions of success. Any of my own professional ambitions take a back seat to that priority.

Another caller suggested that awards and accolades mean nothing after we die; but the number of people we helped during our lives means a lot. That's a good point. So, shouldn't we be able to AT LEAST list our own kids among those people? If we can't, did we really achieve "success?" Not by my accounting.

For years, my idea of success was working for DEC until I died for I loved the work and culture; then things changed, DEC was bought and sold. Then is was surviving long enough to comfortably change careers to one of exploration and some measure of service, like feeling free to be an NHPR leadership council contributor, along with the same for WENH, WGBH, AFSC, CCCO, Earlham College, etc. That didn't happen, but I was successful in changing my view of success to one of more personal engagement, but the question of success is elusive.

I have come to realize that those of my generation, and of the one that came just before, have been examining their success and channeling it. With those like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, Bono, Richard Branson, putting not only their wealth, but influence behind issues, I see that money is neither the issue nor the solution.

This week is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, and it comes at a time of controversy over the preaching of Rev Wright, and over the race of Barack Obama. Is the possibility of Obama being president something that MLK would consider success? Would the hatred directed at Wright for rhetoric very much like MLK's be something he considered success? In a speech a few weeks before his death, MLK announced his refocus to that of poverty, poverty that afflicted blacks as well as whites, and he said something like America is going to hell, invoking the same sermonizing structure used by so many other preachers including my own dad, and of course, Rev Wright. Who was the success? MLK or those who transformed his death in an unfulfilled struggle into an end of the struggle in the public debate? Certainly fame and acclaim doesn't define success.

Perhaps the way to think of success is to consider failure. Racism is the process of achieving success by seeking and defining the failure of others. Hitler's not so secret formula for success was racism, and if we are honest, we see many American political leaders who achieved or seek success through racism, whether defining blacks, Chinese, gays, women, Muslims, Asians, or again today, immigrants, as the failures of creation, or the cause of all failure.

At 60 I now pay too much attention to those who die, those who I grew up with. Kurt Vonnegut comes immediately to mind because he was the topic on NHPR yesterday. Would he claim success in his life - too many still see glory in war and too few the horror of war. Yet, in his legacy of fiction, he like many other artists, he continues to inspire others to question their world view and their values and what they believe to be true.

Ego makes me want to be the success of Vonnegut, because I see the success of Buffett or Bono as too far outside the realm of possibility. I aspire to be as free to speak truth to power like Ted Turner and fantasize of his time with Barbarella.

Ultimately, my success will be never seeing success as something within reach, while never giving up questing for success, and getting up each day to take one more tentative small step toward success, no matter how impossible or hard that step seems or the possibility of success so impossible.

Racism is the process of seeking the failure of others to achieve one's own success. Today as 40 years ago, racism is still very much alive, blaming immigrants or the poor as the cause of failure in the quest for success. In response, I and so many others, join in fighting racism in all its forms, for truly Keeping the Dream Alive is success.

As I read the above replies it depresses me to think we live in such a negative world where success is impossible or cannot be achieved. It reminds me of the Greek myth about Sisyphus. For those who may not recognize the name, he was damned for all eternity until he could roll a boulder to the top of a hill. He never succeeded for the boulder would always roll back down before reaching the top and he would have to begin again. In theory, Sisyphus is still in Underworld failing to get the boulder to the top of the hill. Are we all like Sisyphus in that we are damned to fail? Other then being damned by the gods, why else would we fail? Let us take a look at an example, perhaps a child learning to tie his/her shoe. I would imagine that a parent or any one teaching this, would first give a demonstration rather then handing the child a shoe and telling them to tie it. This could end badly with many over hand knots on top of each other. In this instance did the child fail to tie his shoe or did the parent fail to teach the child the proper way? So the teacher then giving a demonstration hands a shoe to the child and holds on to the other one. Step by step the two work together and behold, the child has tied the shoe by mocking the teacher’s actions. However, when told to do it on their own the child may fail to accomplish the goal. The teacher then goes over with the child how to do it again. But why, the child has been shown once isn’t that good enough? Perhaps the teacher is showing him/her again so that the child may learn from his/her mistake and not repeat it. The child is then asked to try again on his/her own and behold the shoe has been tied. The key to the child’s success was learning from his/her mistake and not repeating it. This reminds me of a famous quote. When asked why continue to try to build a light bulb after failing hundreds of times (thousands depending on where you look for the quote), Edison replied, “I have not failed to make a light bulb, I have succeeded in finding hundreds of ways not to make a light bulb and, therefore, do not need to try them again.”
It would seem that the child accomplishing the goal of tying the shoe would be a goal oriented success. However, there seems to be a common thread in some posts that there should be a universal definition for success. This is where I have had the most difficulty. Some have said that leaving the world better then we when we arrived is success. But what does this entail? What does it mean to leave the world a better place? With the way the world currently is, could anyone say we have been succeeding? Even the Olympic torch, something that should represent world peace and unity is under high security due to threat because yet another country is being invaded. At this point I’m beginning to agree that maybe success is like perfection, something that you can strive towards but never achieve, in a universal sense rather then goal oriented. However I think the key lies with the child and his/her shoe. When the child was unable to accomplish the goal of tying his/her shoe by making a mistake, the child was able to learn from that mistake. And perhaps that is the universal definition of success, to learn from ones mistakes so that you can get that much closer to accomplishing your goal. Isn’t it said to remember our past or we are doomed to repeat it? Well considering we have been repeating history, for those of you who may question this I invite you to take history courses at a local community college, I would say remembering it has done nothing. Instead of remembering history, I would advise we take a page out of the child’s book who was tying his shoe, to learn from the past so that we do not continue to make the same mistakes throughout history. Thus the universal definition of success, to learn from our mistakes to achieve a goal, still holds true. Thus, when we look back at our lives in old age, we can think if we succeeded by looking to see if we indeed did correct our mistakes and learn from them, or if we spent our entire life making the same mistakes failing to realize a learning experience. To sum all of this up a saying my parents said to me as a child comes to mind with a small change, “If at first you don’t succeed, learn from your mistakes and try and try again.”

Success is end result of a life time spent trying to exhaust all efforts and opportunities at failure.
H. Scott
Political Darkside

Success is definable. It has nothing to do with money or relationships or jobs. Each person has their own definition of success. The general definition, I believe, is achieving one's personal goals.

That quote, in 20 words, sums up my personal philosophy. Props to whoever spoke this genius phrase!