What Does Success Mean

The concept of success and what it means to be successful varies for every person. Where one stands financially and lots of other factors can shape their definition. So, how can one’s socioeconomic class change or mold what success means to them? We were interested to see how members of different economic classes define success, and how their definitions compare and contrast. Curious to see how much one’s wealth can determine how they view success. One’s perspective to what success is can be the deciding factor on whether they see themselves as successful and how they view others as well. The general concept of success can be very important throughout life and is key the sector in most people’s philosophies towards how they live.

Success is a broad term that is quite open to interpretation, but there are text-book definitions to what the concept means. The concept seems to be quite subjective, when defined by regular citizens, and can vary from person to person, although most definitions have some consistent ideas. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines success as, “Favorable or desired outcome; also :the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.” This definition is pretty broad and covers most things that people say in their personal definitions. The definition does seem pretty emotionless though, and I would say it’s making success objective. The definition this book provides allows for someone's success to easily be gaged because of the objectivity of the words used. The textbook definition aims to make success a more concrete term that can easily be determined or analyzed.

Lower Socioeconomic Class: (Income: 26,000) “I feel at the end of the day success is different for each person but for me it’s about being passionate about what you love and doing those things. And when you fail which you will you get right back up again and again towards your goals.”

Middle Socioeconomic Class: (Income: 80,000) “Success is setting personal goals and achieving them then with those goals being able to use to support you and your family. That’s not right it requires two incomes to survive in this day and age. But happiness is required with your goals and successfulness to be happy.”

Upper Socioeconomic Class: (84,000) “Success is two fold. First is financial. We built a future enabling us to enjoy retirement. Second is personal. Reaching a place in our lives where we are content with ourselves. The people we have become.”

After my three interviews I found that throughout the three socioeconomic classes their definitions were pretty similar. For the most part the three interviewees agreed with the textbook definition except they included that they thought happiness was a part of being successful. This is an interesting piece of success that the accepted definition does not include, but it is really important when you ask an individual. If the idea of happiness is vital to what people of every socioeconomic class think success is, why is this not included? I personally believe that the attainment of happiness is an important part of being successful and I found that others agreed with me, this was interesting. Also, this was a pleasant surprise since the accepted definition is more about the attainment of power. It appears evident that the idea of what success is to a single person and then the concept itself are two different things. It is also apparent that most people assume that once one achieves this, “wealth,” and “power,” that the happiness will come along with it. So although the definitions sound different they seem as though they are intertwined

There was certain parts of the interviewees definitions of success that I would say varied, and this may or may not have been caused by their differing socioeconomic classes. I would say that it seemed as though the person I interviewed from the lower socioeconomic class put more emphasis on happiness and passion being involved in success. In contrast to that, the person from the middle socioeconomic class put much more pressure on achieving personal goals than he did more emotional words like happiness, although he did include that in the end. The member of the highest economic class included in their definition what seemed to be happiness but never used the word or any form of it. I had the theory before my interviews that maybe the higher a person’s socioeconomic class the more that person would consider money or tangible accomplishments to be what success means. This trend seems to have the evidence to support it but more interviews would be able to investigate this is more detail. The interviews that I have done do show a pattern of the use of happiness to gage success though, and I do see that the lower the socioeconomic class the more likely a person is to use happiness as a gage for achievement.

Another piece of information that can be learned through this research is how people define success when asked. It seemed to me that the people I interviewed were all relatively successful for their class, but it seemed as though they all thought so as well. All three of the people that I interviewed seemed to define success as things that they believed they had achieved. It also seemed as though the people defined success as things that would make them seem at least relatively successful. People want to think themselves as successful, and if they can define the word success differently in their own head to fit themselves this can help. Even if this process is not done on purpose I do think that it happens subconsciously as all three of my interviewees seem to fit this. I think that this would most likely stay consistent and would be interested to see how more people’s definitions worked into this beyond the limitations of this research.

As everyone is soon to enter a new year reflecting on what success means and what goals to set is timely. I think that knowing what success means to yourself personally can aid in reaching it. When I think about myself my definition of success does include happiness and also quite well reflects things that I have attained or can see myself reaching. This is consistent with what I found of the people I interviewed. In the future I would like to set my definition of success past what I have achieved or even think I will definitely accomplish and see if that pushes me further towards the new goals. I hope that this piece will make readers consider what their own definition is and how that relates to what economic class they belong to.