What is “success” anyway?
This is part 3 of 3 in a series on debunking myths about our relationship to success.
Last week we looked at the common advice, “You shouldn’t care what others think.”
This week, we’re looking at whether or not unconventional definitions of success lead to freedom.
Side note, I got COVID for the first time over the weekend so please go easy on me if you find typos. Hopefully this post made it through the brain fog intact.
Myth 1: Don’t compare yourself to others. (Read here)
Myth 2: You shouldn’t care what others think. (Read here)
Myth 3 (today): Define success for yourself.
Series in a (poetic) nutshell— To be without success is to be free. To be without failure is to be enchanted. Become enchanted and free. Let each action bring you closer to the untamable present. Exchange striving for sweet effort.
Even unconventional versions of success keep you striving for something out of reach.
Though I may not have codified it in pen on a journal page or put it on a poster behind my desk, I used to have a fairly specific definition of success.
At some point in my life (roughly teens and early 20s), my definition of success involved making a tangible impact on the world.
On the bright side, when defining success for myself I was free to pursue things I decided were valuable rather than just chasing things other people said were important.
On one level, that’s a great thing!
More autonomy meant I wasn’t tangled in a rigid capitalist definition of success, and was able to pursue things that inspired me.
But even with my own definition of success, I was still vulnerable to measuring my sense of worth against a rubric and feeling bad that I hadn’t checked all the boxes.
Haven’t saved the world yet? I must be failing.
And what would happen if I did check goals off my list? I would feel nice for a bit but when that feeling passed, I’d reach for the next accomplishment.
Even when calibrating “success” to align with my values, I was still trapped on an invisible treadmill chasing a future state.
This endless pursuit of any version of success leads to disappointment.
As you check off boxes, more and more appear.
No matter how you define success, the next carrot is always just out of reach. And there’s always someone next to you catching a bigger, juicier carrot.
There are some goals I once had that I’ll never reach. I imagine that’s true for you too, and there’s already disappointment baked into that experience.
But if everything lines up, maybe you do hit a major milestone.
Maybe you graduate medical school and land a great job. You get enough clients to start paying your bills consistently. You get a promotion with a dream title. You get published. You win a prestigious award. You save enough for retirement. You have a solo art show.
Congrats! All of your hard work has paid off.
You’re excited. You celebrate.
Then a bit of time passes and an uneasiness seeps into your gut. That accomplishment was great, but you’re not satisfied.
No matter how many things you do accomplish, dissatisfaction always comes back, doesn’t it?
Something doesn’t add up.
Accomplishments are disappointing because associated good feelings are conditional.
You feel happy because your boss thinks highly of you.
You feel valued because people are interested in your ideas.
You’re proud because critics find your artistic style innovative.
What happens when these things are no longer true?
Conditions can’t permanently satisfy us because they themselves aren’t permanent.
Your boss thought highly of you, but you made a mistake and let them down. Still feeling happy?
It seemed like people were interested in your ideas, but your recent post was a flop. Maybe your ideas aren’t so good after all. Still feeling valued?
Your artistic style was so innovative that it got copied, became cliché, and some hotshot has now deemed it unimaginative.
If you’re counting on conditions to satisfy you, your satisfaction won’t last.
But what about something like a Nobel Prize? Isn’t that permanent? Wouldn’t that lead to lasting satisfaction?
Thinking about your Nobel Prize (nice one!) might bring a sparkle to your eye every once in a while.
But it won’t stop you from feeling grief when a family member dies. It won’t soften the blow when you lose a friend. It won’t lessen the pain of a breakup.
Life keeps moving, and other conditions appear. Some conditions will bring uplifting emotions, some will bring difficult emotions. No conditions will last.
What’s beyond the success treadmill?
Maybe there’s something bigger than all of this.
I had a felt sense of this inquiry growing up, which is why as a teen I felt an affinity with counter-cultural thinkers including Chris McCandless and anarchist philosophers like Emma Goldman.
I was drawn to people who saw through the narratives in society about finding satisfaction in success, in consumerism, in beauty, in pretending we had all the answers.
And yet I also felt that living off the land or dumpster diving or pursuing a life with art at the forefront wouldn’t create lasting satisfaction either.
There may be merits to some or all of those lifestyles, and they might be worth considering.
But no matter how far from mainstream definitions of success those lifestyles might be, they still can’t be counted on for lasting satisfaction.
Conditions change, so conditional satisfaction doesn’t hold up for long.
What would it mean to go beyond success and failure altogether? Beyond conditions as a source of satisfaction?
I’ll bring back the words that framed this series:
To be without success is to be free. To be without failure is to be enchanted. Become enchanted and free. Let each action bring you closer to the untamable present. Exchange striving for sweet effort.
And a poem to wrap things up.
Sweet Sloppy Success
I succeed in
30,000,000,000,000 cells
hanging out together
breathing air
wiping themselves on the steering wheel
bumping up against trillions of bacteria
and humming with mystery
I succeed in the earth holding me
with invisible force
so I don’t fly willy-nilly
into the dark expanse behind the moon
I succeed in finding amorphous clouds of sensation
when I close my eyes
get very still
and search
for edges
(try it)
I succeed in trying
sloppily
over and over again
and learning to love slop.
Four Noble Truths: the ultimate alternative to success
Someone much wiser than me made a roadmap out of this mess. Check out the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism and see what you think. The themes in this post relate to the first two of the Noble Truths. The third and fourth offer a path forward.
Exchange striving for sweet effort
The line, “exchange striving for sweet effort” is about taking action from a different place… not from a desire to be successful, which leads to striving, but from doing what feels deeply right, which can lead to sweet effort. For me, sweet effort means enjoyment of doing something not as a means to an end but as an experience in itself.
Extrinsic vs intrinsic wellbeing
Through a meta-analysis of studies with a collective 70,000 participants, researchers found that pursuit of extrinsic goals like money and validation led people to “decreased flourishing” regardless of success. Read more at Psychology Today
I’ve enjoyed this series and learned a lot while writing it. I’d love to hear if there’s anything in the last three weeks you want to explore further. Hit reply and let me know.
With a foggy but recovering brain,
Olivia