Alex Sur
Alex Sur
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

I’m not willing to pay for my success. Are you?

Make no mistake, any success comes at a certain price. In most cases it’s at least your time, among other sacrifices. To succeed in any field, you usually need to spend a lot of time first learning and then practicing and refining your skills. As a rule, you also need to work long hours to get to the top (or at least above average) in one or another domain you’ve chosen.

I admit I can hardly be considered a successful person in terms of wealth and career. I’m not poor but definitely far, far away from being rich. I also have a simple job without much opportunity for career growth. On the plus side, though, I’ve always had enough spare time to engage in my pastimes.

I reckon it’s because of my lack of ambition, but when I occasionally ask myself whether I’d like to have more money and a better occupation in exchange for my spare time that I enjoy so much, I tend to answer “No, I wouldn’t.” After much contemplating, I’ve figured out that perhaps the main reason I sometimes (quite seldom in fact) wish I were successful is for people around me to think highly of me. But I don’t really need it myself. In fact, I’m pretty sure that my life satisfaction would decline if I had more money but at the same time were bound to spend less time with my friends and engage in my hobbies less often. For me, the obvious benefits of being wealthy don’t outweigh the pleasures I derive from my hobbies and the time I socialize with my friends.

In most Western societies, being not ambitious is looked upon rather as a vice. I live in one of such societies and I admit this attitude of many poisons my life a little bit. Knowing that some people think you’re a vain loser doesn’t add to your self-esteem. I’ve once come across a saying that can be roughly translated in English as something like this: Not giving a shit about what others think of you ensures a much happier life. So true, but in my case the problem is that I still do give a shit about what others think of me, despite all my efforts not to.

So being a vain loser, it seems to me like quite an actual problem today. You see, more or less we all have to find the right balance between what we want in life and what others expect us to have and strive for.