What is Success and How do I Get Some?

"Nothing Gives the Illusion of Success Like a Boat" - Arrested Development

Success is one of the most subjective words in the English dictionary and follows shortly after it in the dictionary as well. It's a great word in getting rid of your S's in Scrabble and also a great word to attempt to spell without Spellcheck. It's the opposite of failure, which is generally acknowledged in most catchy quotes about success as being necessary to define actual success.



Yet it remains an elusive concept, an ever-changing ideal that is rarely ever fully achieved by most people. It's an abstract term that means different things to every person on the planet. It's the attainment of a personal goal on one hand, it's the acknowledgement of that goal by strangers on the other.

Often people confuse success as being based on material possessions. We see celebrities and are conditioned to think that they define success; fame, wealth, the amount of magazine covers they are on. We see someone driving a more expensive car than us and think that person is more successful. Someone has a bigger house than us and that person automatically is deemed more successful, despite us having no idea how they got that house or that car. Perhaps they inherited it, perhaps they are a mechanic taking it for a test drive. We don't truly know most people's level of success but we project it on them. We automatically equate what we see and judge as a measurement of success without any true evidence.

Our society has tended to forget that success is not just about wealth or about fame. It's about achieving something desired or attempted. The confusion lands mainly in that for most people success does not come until it is acknowledged by external sources, such as their bank account or the publicity they receive.

As car fires go, this was a great success. 

Take writing a book. It's a huge task that involves hours of isolation by a committed person. It involves a knowledge of basic story structure, plot, spelling and punctuation. To complete a book is a major accomplishment, Yes. But does that make it or the writer a success? Not particularly.

Yet, if that writer is published, does that make them a success? Maybe.

What about if that writer wrote a book and it was purchased for $2 million even before it was published? Does that make the writer a success?

Most would say 'Hellz Yeah! $2 Million for a book? Where's the paragraph key?'

But what if it doesn't sell anything? What if it is ridiculed by their peers? Is the writer still a success then?

Devin Townsend's career arc never went higher.

Depends on their own personal definition of what ultimately is success. It's a term that can keep moving. You can say it's an accomplishment of a goal. Simple, elegant. You accomplish that goal and then you can say 'hey, I've succeeded.'

But then what?

Most businesses/people who have accomplished their goal aren't satisfied, so their goals are continually adjusted. It's why businesses are never satisfied with just profit, it has to be record profit. People are never satisfied with what they have, it's why Christmas was invented and why China is a superpower.

Most people believe that happiness lies once they have achieved their goals but study after study has shown that is not true. There is no goal line to cross to achieve happiness. It's an ever-changing goal that is never satisfied. That is humanity's view of success. Unattainable.

The guy with 12 rings just laughed.

We live for that temporary success that comes from achieving a set goal. It comes from your own personal valuation of achieving that goal. It comes from not looking outside yourself for valuation but from within. Nobody is the best at anything. Society is set up in a way so that the 'winners' are always changing. Records are made to be broken. Money is made to be moved around. Most sporting events, where winning is the only definition of success, only grant that acknowledgement for a few months before the cycle begins again to determine success.

But that is a success that is defined by the second, more popular definition, that with success comes fame, wealth and prosperity. People's names are etched forever in history or until someone comes along and is more successful.

There's a certain mythology around success. That with hard work and determination success will follow. That's utter bullshit. The world is full of athletes, poets, politicians, farmers, suicides, Pauly Shore, students, etc. etc. that have worked hard and tried their best but ultimately have failed at achieving that distinction in which society has judged them to be successful.

Bill Gates didn't become world-famous because he worked hard and was determined to create the personal computer. He became world-famous because he was born at the right time in history, had wealthy, influential parents that supported his curiosity and actively encouraged it, he went to a university that allowed him unlimited access to it's relatively new computer labs and was able to meet people with the same interests (such as Steve Jobs) that he was able to relate to and discuss abstract ideas and concepts that otherwise would never have happened. He didn't have to work to pay his rent, tuition, etc. He had a vast amount of free time that he dedicated to his hobby and he took that passion to the next level and created one of the most life-changing inventions in history.

There has been much said about the 10,000 hours concept; where for a person to truly excel at anything, a certain dedicated devotion must occur. Michael Jordan was an exceptionally gifted athlete, with good genetics, access to basketball courts and coaches but also an ability to spend an exceptional amount of time practicing basketball. That is what elevated him above others. This is the same of most professional athletes today. Hockey parents invest a lot of money in their child's hockey time as it has been proven that those with the most 'practice' hours have the best chance of hockey success.

One guy's definition of enough success was to just have this
picture taken as a Beatle...

The Beatles became one of the biggest names in the world through music because it was the right time in history, they were young and had an opportunity to practice for 8-12 hours a day in German pubs before they were considered a success. They came along at the same time as the medium of television, which created an incredibly vast audience for them across the world. And, they were talented, musically-gifted kids who decided to play music instead of join the army.

Success is a personal definition that each individual has to decide for themselves. Is it the amount of people who know who they are? Is it the type of car they drive or the size of their home? Or is it something else, like how you treat strangers you never met? Or how polite your kids are? Is it the amount of DVDs you own or is the amount of DVD's you have given away?

Ultimately, success comes from the attainment of goals set by the individual and the willingness for that person to see they have achieved that goal and take happiness or pleasure from it.

And a boat.