The Dangers of an Obsession With Success
The Sacrifice of Happiness for Self-Reliance Against All Odds
Take pause for a moment and think of an ordinary person. Nobody real — just manifest whatever entity comes into your head when I tell you to think of “a regular, working-class person.”
Is he tall, or short? Is he skinny, or fat? Is he a she?
Have you created a person similar to you in physicality and form, or have you created what you would consider to be society’s idea of a normal person?
But, see, therein lies a problem:
As a society, we hate normal people.
We’re inundated with marketing and advertisements on a daily basis that center around an individualistic mentality.
Think different.
Be you.
Have it your way.
Individualism and becoming self-reliant is the ideal that society wants us to strive towards. Which is not to say the concept alone should be approached with any negative connotation.
Let’s say you’re reading this in America. Think back to high school, and to United States history.
Think of all the times we aggrandized the leaders of the past, and looked to their ability to stand and be bold in the face of opposition. Think of how we skirted the troubled nuance of their lives to discuss at length what made them unique and special individuals.
Think of where you’re reading this. Medium is a website that caters to the young and the entrepreneurial at heart. Look to the top of the home page.
Technology. Culture. Entrepreneurship. Creativity. Self.
So you may be young. You may be liberal. You may be frustrated and tired and maybe even a little bit cynical at the environment in which you find yourself. You may look to your parents and your peers with resentment towards their apathetic acceptance of what you personally define as a sedentary life.
So you read articles online. You study tax law. You stay up late in the evenings writing blog posts and wake up early in the morning to run your small business.
You give up nights.
You give up weekends.
You seek solace in those who do the same as you and you hold just a little bit of resentment for the simplicity you see in the lives of others.
But you don’t want the lives of others. You want your life.
You want the life promised to you by top contributors on Medium or preached to you in expensive masterclasses and workshops.
You learn how to code.
You learn how to write copy or turn a dime blogging.
Every moment that is not spent marketing your brand or creating for clients is spent reading the lives and watching the YouTube videos of digital nomads and internet entrepreneurs.
Before you know it, you’re obsessed with success.
But take a step back.
Remove yourself from the equation. Look to your idea of a regular person. Compare their life to the life of the self-starter and entrepreneur described above.
Can you say which is happier, truly? Can you say that the person who desires to achieve greatness at any expense is truly the person that is actually the most content with themselves?
I don’t mean to sound negative towards many people I admire and respect that focus on working in the creative field or work for themselves. These are my desires as well. This is by no means a statement that loving hard work and being success-driven is anything less than a noble cause — in theory.
But there’s an inherent danger to surrounding yourself in the mindset and words of those who are what you’d like to be.
The more you convince yourself that individualism, self-reliance, and success are the only concepts that will make you happy, the more you become dissatisfied with your current state of affairs.
There’s a fetishization of individualism that’s propagated online. An idea that’s being sold and marketed — by individuals who’s entire job is to sell you that idea. You would be genuinely surprised if I showed you the number of freelance writers who make an income by showing people how to become freelance writers.
These people aren’t bad people. These are individuals that are trying to sell a product to make money and help others— and they deserve every cent of what they earn doing so. But think carefully before making rash decisions because you are convinced that you cannot be happy any other way.
Realize that the entire point of marketing is to convince you to desire something that you don’t have. Whether or not you actually need it is rarely part of the equation.
Seek wise council if you must — talk to others who are in the same career field as you and learn from their words — but do not convince yourself that happiness comes from self-employment, or your dream job, or any other unattainable concept your mind can generate.
You will never end up exactly where you think you will. You may get close, or your expectations will alter as your life progresses. But your mind can and will generate a reality that’s simply unachievable.
Lower your head. Work towards what you want. Do more. But please — do not sacrifice your present happiness in anticipation of future success.
If you do so, you will only be accepting perpetual dissatisfaction — as the reality that you were convinced that you wanted never arrives. And you will fare far worse for wear than the so-called “normal sedentary lives” others live in contentment.
So continue on. Learn from anyone you can and aim for the career you want to have. But remember to prioritize discovering what makes you happy and content over what seems new and interesting.
Work hard and work constantly — but choose to be happy now.
