“On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man’s experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures”
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Wisdom of Life)
This question was originally pulled from Tim Ferriss’ Tools of Titans and I thought it would be fun to answer it for myself. However, instead of just naming one person and analyzing that answer I wrote a list down. Partially because Tim Ferriss was the first name that came up, and I’m pretty sure it priming has something to do with that. Partially because I like reflecting on people that I admire.
When I think of the word successful when it comes to people many different kinds of people come to mind. Honestly, I could go on all day writing people’s names down. I originally was just doing to write 1, then I said I’ll just do 5, but I’ve managed to stop myself at 15.
They are all kind of random, but I think the aspects that I admire of each of these people’s lives are an indication of what success looks like for me.
From what I can tell, I believe each of these people are successful because of a few reasons:
They’re known as people who have made a positive influence in the world.
That positive influence was brought out in a way that can out live them and will exist long after they die.
They’re all financially well off.
They all took the attention people gave them and created something incredible out of it.
They all have a certain kind of freedom that I don’t quite have the words to explain. (It’s now my job to figure that out.)
They all have embraced the miracle that life is and live in a way that does it justice.
I could go A LOT deeper with these ideas and perhaps someday I ought to, but I’ll leave that here for now. I didn’t have as much time to write this week, and I spent most of my allocated writing time to research for a behemoth of a blog post I’m working on.
In the future, I think it would be fun to make a list of people who are considered conventionally successful, but for one reason or another I personally don’t consider them successful. Comparing what this second group has in common will give me a clearer picture of what unsuccessful will look like for me.
Defining success for ourselves is crucial for our mental health. The higher the level of articulation, the less we find ourselves needlessly suffering on a hedonic treadmill or chasing phantom pleasures. We can level up our articulation through analyzing our personalities and inclinations as well. Discovering what we are and what we like helps us recognize success if we are fortunate enough to meet her.
