I was just wondering, for each of you, how would you define success. In broader terms - I'm not asking what your specific dreams are, but how you'd judge whether someone is 'successful', be it yourself or someone else.
Meeting your goal, whether it was the exact goal or not. For example, one goal I have is to officiate college football. Now whether that's Division 1 big college football, or NAIA Shippensburg State vs. Slippery Rock University, either way, it's still college football.
Maxing out your capabilities, basically, and taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way. Goals, values, and perspectives change all the time, but so long that you die with no (or more realistically, as few as possible) regrets, I view that as having lived a successful life.
Able to love and be loved. (Any kind of love, not just romantic.) That's all that truly matters in life.
Success just means doing something as intended. People's salaries and accomplishments really don't impress me that much. I haven't done much with my life but I don't equate a successful person with their career and money. If anything I consider someone that spends their entire life making money, and working, and just being another person that read some books, got a piece of paper, and acquired a job as successful. Mainly because if I did, that would be a blow to my self esteem, because I have done just as much unstructured independent studying, if not more, than the average university grad, and don't have anything to show for it but me flapping my mouth. If someone's passion and love in life was the study, and to work hard, and to be dedicated to work, which I think a few people actually are, then I would consider them successful, but someone doing what they were basically conditioned and behaviourally engineered to do, really isn't success. Sorry, but I can't stand the western world obsession with money, and that equating happiness. I'm not against working hard, I've done labourous work for many years. But there simply are NOT ENOUGH RESOURCES, land, human resources, food, minerals, water.... EVERYTHING. For everyone in the world to live what is considered a "successful" life. I will not be a part of the struggle to make as much, and consume as much, and destroy the earth as much as possible. Because that is really what we are all working too. It is unrealistic for ALL of us to desire a mansion, to desire plenty of money, fine dining, cars, clothes, everything. There just isn't enough to sustain that lifestyle for us all. My idea of success is living in a world were my happiness and content with the way my life is is considered successful, for when someone that is content with living in a small area, without many amenities is considered successful. What I want for my life, really is a better example, I just want a few amenities, like t.v, and computer, food, and shelter. I really don't give a shit about anything else. And I feel weird for that because everyone else is striving to be something, when it really doesn't matter when you die. Yes you want to provide for your family, and kids, but does it really matter if you had a lot of shit. We are like Pharaohs the amount of shit we want to die with by our sides. Sorry just a rant, but I'd like to see peoples position of success move towards, being a contributing member of society no matter what that is, and just being happy with where you are.
^ The only time, and I am being actually serious when I say this, that our current lifestyle is acceptable, and idea of success, would be if we were able to go into "warp drive" and rape the galaxy of it's resources, and use other planets as places to live. But right now we are stuck on earth, so we don't really have to right let alone ability, to continue in the direction we are continuing. The galaxy is huge, and the universe, with virtually unlimited supplies of everything, but here on Earth, we are limited, and living like pigs.
As clichéd as it is, if you're happy, I think you're successful. Defining happiness is a bit more tricky though.
"Money is the anthem of success." My opinions have already largely been expressed by other posters in this thread, but I had National Anthem by Lana playing in the background so, naturally, I couldn't help but quote it.
Honestly, more than anything else, I just want to be a good spouse and parent to my (as yet, hypothetical) kids. Although working at a stable "career job" (i.e., one I've been working toward for years vs. taking something just to pay the bills) also seems to factor into what I'd call personal success.
To me, success is the achievement of a goal that was possible to fail. Success requires obstacles and adversity to be success. Luck is not success, which means that success matters the less you have in the first place. If little/no effort was put in, then I don't consider it success. That's why I don't believe money is success in those terms. To be born into a rich family means successes are less prominent; the bar is set higher, but having a ladder means that the accomplishment of normally large goals becomes a minimal achievement. Material wealth removes the emotional rewards of accomplishment, and I don't consider that to be success. To earn wealth being from a lower-middle or lower class family is to succeed greatly; getting a medical doctorate at Havard is going to mean more to a Jamaican from a labouring family than it is to a Bostonian with a banker and a lawyer for parents.
