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I was prompted to think about ‘success’ by a catchy and positive video post on my Facebook home page.
The words are:
“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
The quote is by Professor, Environmental Studies and Politics David W. Orr of Oberlin College Ohio. I got hooked by the message and thought I will ask the 140 men on the men’s list that I help moderate, what they think about the ‘Success’ word. It created one of the liveliest exchanges we have had for awhile.
One man wrote passionately about his brother who had just attempted suicide partly because he felt a failure. He was not a fan off ‘Success’ as it was a major cause of a sense of failure for men.
Another man, currently in remission after suffering two years of diabolical chemotherapy treatments for cancer, had strong feelings as well. He stated that all of his grand material achievements; now mean very little to him, and that what he values the most is connection with others.
Also, being true to himself and speaking his truth,expressing his feelings, loving and being loved, and through gratitude, allowing his inner joy to emerge, in happiness.
Another two men from a business background suggested that ‘Success’ was a neutral word merely meaning the achievement of goals.
So ‘Success’ has a lot of energy. Let’s unpack it. The dictionaries have two meanings for it.
- The accomplishment of one’s goals.
- Achieving wealth, respect, position, honor or fame.
It’s the second one that is problematic – The great social expectation that a man should succeed in terms of wealth, respect, fame, prowess, heroism etc. That expectation is a major subtext that pervades our society and media thrive on it and continue to promote that meaning. Some say language creates reality, so we should not be surprised that the success that shapes our society is on of wealth, honour and fame.
The IT billionaires, pop stars, movie stars, sports champions, politicians, Generals, snipers with the most kills. These are the ones that our society through the lens of our media, paint, as the most worthy.
Then there is the flip side – the implicit sense of failure and unworthiness if one does not achieve these goals. Leading to background thoughts like –
- Women won’t love me if I am not a ‘success’
- My parents, friends, children won’t respect me if I am not a ‘Success’
- I am a nobody my life is meaningless if I am not successful.
It may well be that the ruthless drive for this social ‘Success’ has landed us in our current situation where credibility of politicians is very low, corruption is high, inequality is growing and the planets sustainability is in question.
Ask yourself –how much does the social concept of Success drive my decision making and sense of wellbeing?.
Moving along with the major societal expectations like ‘Success’ is like going with the tide, get in the row boat and get carried along by the stream. But going against those expectations is like rowing upstream against the tide, its hard work.
Setting your own goals and maybe adding ones that benefit others and the planet, can mean being able to stand alone. Not relying on popular societal positive feedback for your sense of self-worth. Thinking about the goals that we have across all aspects of our lives and their pros and cons can be an interesting exercise. There is lots of stuff on the Web about that.
I was reflecting on ‘Success’, searching for a theme. There was an itch, something was not ringing true. So I went back to Prof. Orr’s quote. On my first reading (the video and text above) it seemed an insightful quote. It had that feel good, sense to it – yeah we are the good guys. On my second reading I had this feeling ‘hang about there is something wrong with this’. It came to me, what an easy and cheap shot to lay the boot into ‘Success’. Its the old game of creating goodies and baddies. It’s the old us and them game. It creates divisions, right and wrong, which usually don’t serve us or our planet well.
If we add the and word instead of either or we get a reframe a more positive set of outcomes that maybe we can work with, to create the changes we want.
So we can say SUCCESS AND peacemakers, environmental restorers, moral courage, ethics, community builders. We can start to change the way success is seen. We know ‘what gets rewarded gets done’. We can start looking at so called successful people see which ones add those positive goodies to their behaviour, ie leverage off their conventional success. We can start naming them encouraging them. We can even create a new award which highlights those successful people for their good deeds.
We can also start pushing the idea that more ordinary and unknown men are successful in the simple way they choose to lead their lives and the good that they do. We can identify them, name them and encourage them.
We need successes in our health research, environmental initiatives, alternative energy solutions, in creating more peace and less conflict. We need success in just so many areas.
Finally, one confronting way for you to view success is—imagine yourself looking back on your life from your grave. Look at your achievements what do they look like now. Remember it is often said that it is what you might regard as the small things that people remember. Memories of your warmth and kindness, sense of humour, going rowing with grandad, your openness and honesty and true friendship offered to many. It’s a powerful exercise and can guide you in a rebalance of your life.
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of
enthusiasm;. —Winston Churchill
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One of the biggest roadblocks to success is the fear of
failure. Fear of failure is worse than failure itself because it
condemns you to a life of unrealized potential. A successful
response to failure is all in your approach. In a study
recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, researchers found that success in the face of
failure comes from focusing on results (what you hope to
achieve), rather than trying not to fail." – Dr. Travis
Bradberry
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Photo: GettyImages
