The Subjective Narrative Behind Success
Have you ever pictured yourself driving a Camaro, or a Mustang? Feeling the rumbling vibration from the engine roaring to life. The car lurching forward from the initial contact your foot makes with the pedal. Or maybe just a simple Ford Fiesta, or Chevy Impala?
Do you imagine having a bougie house? In Las Vegas maybe? Or does living somewhere totally off grid bring you that deep seated feeling of comfort, like Colorado? We tend to base our ideal goals for life, or those central ideas, surrounding society’s idea of success. That’s how we choose our future career, choose the job we want, etc. But what if society’s definition of success; having a brand new car, making tons of money, and living in a house (the bigger the better), was… wrong? What if its generalized assumptions really… are limited? Could actual success really be subjective?
In order to answer that question, Lily, my partner, and I decided to interview different people from the three main socioeconomic classes. Lower class, Middle class, and Upper Class.
My first interview was of a person who would be considered on the lower end of the spectrum, monetarily speaking. Unfortunately I cannot include personal details, however, this person is in college. Besides living at home with their parents, they pay for everything else. They have a car payment, gas, food, and other expenses they have to pay on a weekly basis. This person on average makes around $6,500 annually. Not surprisingly, they are considered to be lower, lower class, and they agree with that classification. Despite this very desperate situation they appear to be in, they remain hopeful and considerably “happy.”
They defined success as, “reaching or attaining a goal or a set of goals.” As I interviewed this person, they discussed a lot about their worry for their future as well. Their degree they are striving for is a Bachelor of Science with a concentration in Early Childhood Education. This person wants to be an elementary teacher, and more specifically a preschool teacher. Annually, with that job, they would only be making around $10,000-$15,000 more than they already are now. However, even though money is making the decision to stay with it harder for them, it isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. You see, to them, success goes a lot deeper than just making a lot of money, or buying a house, etc. It delves into the success of personal fulfilment. To them, the check is only 50% of their overall happiness within life, maybe 48%.
For my second subject, however, life seemed to be quite different. On average their salary ranged from about $60,000–$65,000 annually. They work as an Engineer/ Computer Technician for a major steel corporation called Arcelormittal. This person has a family of three they take care of, and the daily work life, even though stressful and hectic, is worth it to them.
As you can again probably assume, they consider themselves to be upper, middle class. Success is something they described to be, “providing for your family, maintaining spirituality, and working hard.” They do what they have to do in order to uphold these statutes, sometimes sadly, not caring for the cost.
Now we reach this picture:
You’re probably wondering…, “Why are you showing me a picture of someone’s trailer home?” Or, “Didn’t you already do an interview with a person of ‘lower class’?” Yes, theoretically, but yet here it is, still jumping out to you from the page. Then why did I put this in?
Even in a stereotypical, yet more liberal view of the world, we would still see people who lived here to be on the “poorer” side of the socioeconomic scale, and in most cases that is true. However, for my final subject, the person, considered to be upper class, is living in a home similar to this one. Annually, they make around $110,000! That to me personally is just extraordinary. Most others consider that to be quite wealthy.
So based upon their income, they are classified, socioeconomically, as a part of the upper class, however, their opinion differs from that classification entirely. They have trouble with medical bills, due to a family member's alignment, and unfortunately, the medical “debt,” has caused this little family of three to go almost completely bankrupt. Food is sometimes hard to come by, and whenever any mechanical/ technical issues arise, they hardly have money to fix them.
They defined success very similarly to the others, and said, “Success in life means to provide for those whom you love, have a happy life, and be hardworking and diligent in whatever you do.” This family, even though torn apart ravenously by money, somehow, still tries to move forward, fighting for their own “success.” They are comfortable where they are, their needs are provided for.
With all of these similar, yet varied answers as to the meaning of success, yielding their own answer to my original question, the last piece of information left to analyze, is the pictures of the houses. Now obviously, all of these house are fake, and are not actually these people's homes. However they serve an important role within the visual aspect of my claim. Each of those places are a shelter, but others have more land than others, and others are bigger. So the likely assumption of the owners of these homes would be in opposition of the truth. This not only proves that we tend to agree with society’s “hierarchy,” if you will, but how it is deeply woven into us, as deep as our subconscious.
People don’t need luxury cars, a big house, and bank accounts with more zero’s in it that stretch longer than the Nile River. The three people I interviewed speak for a greater demographic of people. It shows the world that being wealthy, and having a “successful life,” can be two entirely separate entities. They seek all of the comforts of life, finding success in their own personal way, and making the most of what they have.
Society has big expectations of us. According to it, we need all of the stereotypical things mentioned above and so much more.
If you want that, I would advise to chase that dream, but if not, don’t feel dismayed. Success is subjective, as my research goes to show, and you can have anything you want if you set your mind to it. We, collectively, and individually as humans, need to remember this. Choosing a positive outlook on life not only releases us from the normalities posed by society, but from the one’s even put in place by ourselves.
(CHECK OUT LILY’S ARTICLE HERE!! THANKS FOR READING!!:)
