December 6, 2017
How Do You Define “Success” anyway?
The big question: How do you define success? But of course, by measuring it, right?
You might think that the need to quantify everything is innate in humans. After all, when our ancestors lived in caves and had to hunt every day for their survival, 4 wild boars versus 3 could make the difference between life and death.
Fast-forward to the present day (Space Odyssey style) and the obsession with counting is more intense than ever. We live in the digital revolution era (with all its problems). Is your camera 12 or 24 megapixels? How many GB of RAM is your computer, your phone, your tablet? How tall are you? What’s your shoe size? Will it be a small, medium, or large coke?
You could argue – and you wouldn’t be wrong – that there is nothing sinister with measuring in that way. We need to be able to organize our life, after all.
The problems begin when you begin to overexpand measuring in adjacent areas. How many megapixels soon becomes “my camera is better than yours”, and, worse still, “I can take better photos than you”. The size of your clothes becomes a synonym of your value as a person. The size of your breasts a way to define you as a sexual being.
Sooner or later, we reach to the most absurd measurement of them all: the size of your bank account as a sign of your success.
Define Success: Beyond Money
Take a moment to think about it: If you see a headline such as “10 tips to success”, or you overhear a conversation referring to someone as a “successful person”, what does it imply? If you think it implies anything other than “10 tips to become rich” or “a rich person” respectively, you are being naive.
Success is never measured with being content, being intelligent, or being able to influence or inspire other people. Why? But because all these – and every other part of our life that matters – are themselves not quantifiable.
It’s sadly part of human nature to seek simple answers to complex questions, and numbers are the easiest way to compare something. It is also the most useless when the comparison involves non-measurable elements.
To claim that person A is more successful than person B because of their different bank account contents is about the same as claiming that I can take better photos than Ansel Adams because I have a digital camera with 56MP and ISO of 25600, while he was working with b&w ISO 400 film.