Word "Successful", Who Comes To My Mind?
So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.
~― Dr. Seuss
At first I thought it was all about materialism, whoever had the most in comparison to the rest was the most successful. But this perspective is rather flawed, success or being successful is actually more subjective than society wants to acknowledge. What it may mean to be successful may you mean failure, and what to you may be the concept of being successful may be failure to me. Unfortunately I think society in general will never fully acknowledge this, according to the masses, what you have determines how successful you are, but I think this comes from past cultures where success was attributed to those who had the most.
The American Ideology of The American Dream, also plays a major role in influencing the way perceive being success. For according to the Ideology, many Americans generally believe in Achievement, success and materialism all go hand in hand, and since most of current societies are highly influenced by The American Culture it is no wonder many end up having a perspective which isn't universally true for all of us.
There is also the image most of us attribute with the word "successful", a premium suit, well trimmed hair, a premium shirt, a tie, some leather shiny shoes, and to top it up some shiny accessories to match the look. And again there is nothing wrong with the image or the look, I just wish it was not what is always being pushed down our throats as what we should achieve to be like, and if we fail to subscribe to the look one is made to feel like a failure despite that not being true.
I love how the growth of technology and the rise of the tech billionaires has disrupted the preconceptions previously society associated with success. In tech it is not mostly about the looks but what one actually knows or the solution one has to a problem.
Many thinkers understood that success was entirely subjective, many of them coining different phrases to describe what success meant to them, to quote just a few:
"Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world."
― Roy T. Bennett,
"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."
― Winston S. Churchill
"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."
― Milan Kundera
...but somehow 21st century societies somehow miss it all.
To me word "Successful", who comes to my mind is anyone who has not subscribed to societals definitions of what it is to be successful, those who always have a higher goal than just accumulating worldly riches. And who better portrays this other than the now famous Elon Reeve Musk. I choose him because everyone at this point have heard something about him, my point will be easily understood.
He is successful to me because, despite him being among the top richest people on the planet, well those whose wealth is actually accounted for, to him it has never been about the money, but rather it has been an a bridge to facilitate his whatever dreams to turn into reality no matter how ridiculous or ambitious they are.
To me that is success, working very hard in a field you are really passionate about, solve some problem, make lots of money while at it, have fun but always have a higher goal of using the money to pursue another dream, basically have the freedom to pursue whatever it is that makes you tick.
Though, many see things in a rather different way, and once again there is nothing flawed about that, we are all different.
...so here goes my first update on the second part of the #bloggingchallenge. Thanks to the creator of this particular part of the challenge, @macchiata. I cannot wait to see how this turns out, my goal this time being to update on a daily basis no matter how hard it gets.
- 👇 Below are some wise words from Viktor E. Frankl, in his book Man's Search for Meaning...
Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.
~ ― Viktor E. Frankl
✌
Y'all have an amazing day!
Disclaimer:
~ Images credits: pexels.com
Interesting piece thanks for sharing your thoughts and point of view.
Am glad you found it interesting. It is sorta polarizing since one may perceive it as an attack on society but it really isn't.