I continue exploring the commonly agreed upon major pre-requisites for happiness.
"There is only one success - to be able to spend your
life in your own way."
~Christopher Morley
For a long time in our culture happiness is closely
intertwined with success. It's like it is a two way door, and happiness and
success are the keys to the other side: being successful is the key to being
happy. It works the other way around as well:
happiness is the key to success. Once we get one of them, they should
form a loop - becoming more successful begets happiness, which begets more
success, which results in more happiness.
So where do the successful but unhappy people fit in? How
many news reports we've heard about successful millionaire businessmen
committing suicide, or successful and loved celebrities checking in psychiatric
facilities? Surely they don't do it from the overabundance of happiness in
their lives.
Our society places a big emphasis on its definition of
success. Whatever we do, we have to be successful. And we do not allow for
moderation in this area. If we do not want to succeed, why do anything to begin
with? And once we have succeeded, it is unwise to stop. We are taught to never
stop, to push for more.
But when there is no moderation, any good thing starts to
turn into something else.
Success is such a wonderful, optimistic, happy concept! It
challenges us to reach more. It rewards us with feelings of joy, satisfaction,
self-worth, self-respect. And it often results in better life conditions. But being stressed
too much, it produces opposite effects. Optimism becomes pessimism that nothing
is ever enough, and majority of us will not achieve what we set out for.
Happiness turns into despair for being a failure. Healthy incentive transforms
into sickening stress, and excitement becomes anxiety.
If we follow a cause and effect logic, we will easily see
the reason for such gap between what success stands for and how it actually
impacts our lives. Success is the attainment of our goals. If our goal is to be
a healthy person, then success is to lose weight, quit smoking and take up
exercise. If our goal is to be a happy person, then success is to smile, to
enjoy life, to be at piece with the world, the ability to be in charge of our attitude. If the goal is to be
affluent, then success means becoming wealthy, getting a big house and designer
cloths. Our society glorifies competition-based success – becoming better then
others, more beautiful than others, more popular than others, more powerful
than others, and of course richer than others.
This success “competition” starts earlier with every
generation. The little ones are expected to pass tests to enter better
pre-schools. There are more moms that put their precious tiny three and
four-year olds in additional reading classes, math classes, music classes, any
kinds of classes. Kids this age are often not yet capable of really benefitting
from this education. Sometimes we make them go against their will. Why? Because
we know better. Because we hope it will give then an early start, and they will
be able to go to good colleges down the line. We believe it will give them the
tools to become more successful in adult life. Mostly, because we are just
caught up in this success-oriented thinking and we want to teach it to our kids
as soon as possible.
Older kids are stressed even more to go to lots of different
afterschool activities and have a shelf full of medals and awards to show for
them.
Teenagers are under more stress. Not only they have to be smart,
athletic, and popular, they also need to be involved in romantic relationships,
or else they are made to feel like failures.
It is an unforgiving competition of who has the largest number of “friends”
on social networking and who has got the most boyfriends/girlfriends and what
they have already done with them.
Success is not merely suggested. It is demanded of all of
us. Professional athletes are not considered successful if they did not win the
first place. It is amazing to see some
athletes who look sad or even ashamed to have won second or third place in a
major competition.
Some of us set even stricter requirement for themselves.
People who are plenty successful by society norms are still unhappy, because
they demand more of themselves. They rarely feel contentment and satisfaction.
They still feel they are not doing well enough. That sort of expectations is
even harder to overcome, because it comes from ourselves.
We have to succeed. We get inspired by hearing that "some
people dream of success while others make it happen". We have to climb the
social and carrier ladders even if it kills us (and sometimes it does). But the
final destination is worth it. After we reach our goals, and became successful
by the standards of society, we get to be happy. We finally deserve it. Oh,
sweet success.
Sadly, it takes a long time to reach the level of success
expected of truly successful people. And often, when we finally reach our goals
and become successful as we understand it, after we experience elation, we may
suddenly feel empty. If there are no bigger goals and nothing to strive for
anymore, then by definition, there will be no success in the future. This is a
shock for those who are so used to moving towards the generally accepted aims.
The society preaches and praises success, but it does not
preach the idea of “enough”. Successful entrepreneurs are expected to become
millionaires, while successful millionaires should become multi-millionaires,
and so on. It just feels wrong if they maintain the same level of wealth and not work on making more.
This competitive culture in business, social and emotional
spheres thwarts the essence of real happiness - contentment. How can anyone be
content, when so much is expected of them, and it is always anticipated to do a
little better, to reach a little higher?
These heightened expectations and judgment on who is
successful and who is not render many in the “not” section, feeling somehow
lacking. But in line with society expectations, which insist on being cheerful,
we often feel obliged to keep the fake smiles. “Fake
it till you make it”. And after all the necessary social functions are over, lots
of smiling people go home and take their antidepressive medications.
Generally, we do not feel content enough until we reach the
goal. Unfortunately, we forget that the happiness of achieving tends to be
short term. We disregard the long-term kind of happiness - the happiness of
striving, of acting on our dreams, on bettering ourselves. We keep our eyes
so fixed on the target, that we forget to enjoy the process itself.
To be happily successful, first we must decide what our most
important goals are in life. They may or may not coincide with the commonly
lauded goals, or be a combination. Even though true happiness rarely results
from possessions, social status or any other outside factors, we should not
limit our goals solely to possessing a peaceful and joyful attitude toward any
outcome. If we like what society has to offer, we should go for it!
Once we decide what is most meaningful to us, we will not
feel so stifled and stressed by the societal pressures, as we will determine
our own happiness pre-requisites. While we spend our lives getting what we
want, we should keep the desire to succeed strong enough to spur us on but not
too strong to cause a breakdown. And keep in mind that success is not only what
is achieved, but what we had to do to get there.
Good Luck!
