Why Success Doesn’t Equal Happiness
Two of the most problematic concepts in the English language are ‘success’ and ‘happiness’. What do we mean by both? Without getting tied up in trying to define these concepts, I want to discuss how most of what we do is geared towards ‘success’ (whatever that means).
Generally, we conceive of success as related to accumulated financial or physical accomplishments. Serena Williams is one of the most ‘successful’ tennis players due to her accumulation of titles, while Bill Gates is one of the most ‘successful’ people because of his accumulation of wealth. The various successes of these people are then packaged up, commodified and sold to us as roadmaps to achieving our own version of success.
This packaging up of success takes the form of the self-help industry and even the autobiography industry. These industries are based on the premise that we will unlock the ‘secret code’ to success which we’ll then be able to adopt and apply in our lives.
And sure, this may not be an entirely bad thing if your definition of success involves a desire to be curious, to learn and to grow.
However taking a step back, we need to investigate why we chase ‘success’ in the first place.
The answer, we’re constantly told is ‘happiness’. Success = happiness is a common belief in this day and age. But of course, they aren’t part and parcel.
Instead, ‘success’ often breeds unhappiness — an insecurity about losing the status of being successful.
Often the most beautiful people are the most insecure about their bodies — they’re worried about tiny imperfections that other people can’t see, and they’re feeling pressured to maintain their image despite the opposing force of ageing.
The same can be said about athletes. Usain Bolt, the fastest man of all time, has spoken about his fear of being unseated — of losing because of the high expectations others place on him for success.
This is the little known fact about success: it does not inherently lead to happiness.
The question then becomes — do we chase success for approval? Do we seek to be considered by others as successful, not by ourselves?
Is this the dark motivation behind success?
In other words, are we willing to give up our own happiness just to be admired?
In many cases this is true. Many of us chase ‘success’ because we care about what other people think. Specifically, we are concerned about the opinion of people who we don’t truly care about.
This is something that filters into every aspect of our life.
When we’re sitting on a train or bus, why do we whisper when we receive a phone call?
It’s because we don’t want to attract attention from the strangers surrounding us. In other words, we are concerned by what a stranger thinks — and a stranger is, by definition, someone we have no relationship with. They are someone we don’t truly care about.
Now I’m not saying that we should go around and treat every stranger like crap. But what I’m saying is that our actions shouldn’t be purely dictated by pleasing people we don’t truly care about.
In the age of internet trolling, anyone who produces online content can tell you that paying attention to people you don’t care about is a disastrous approach to life. There’s simply no way of appeasing everyone.
Instead, we should pay more attention to the opinions of those who we truly care about.
Once we refrain from doing this, we start to develop a different conception of ‘success’ — one that’s far more meaningful, and one that isn’t related to nebulous factors like approval seeking.
