Who is Defining Your Success? Part 2
March 3, 2010 by Jeanne Male
According to Pew research
80% of 19 – 25 year olds see getting rich
as a top life goal for their generation.
Next is being famous at 51% followed by helping the needy at 30% and being a leader at 22%.
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Society complains that Gen X or Y feel so entitled but fails to convict itself of its role in creating an altered reality. Through no fault of their own many children of the 80′s were handed luxury and steeped in keeping up with the Joneses. The decade of excess epitomized by the 1980′s in America (sometimes dubbed the decade of greed) seriously skewed our ideas about success. Young adults were no longer satisfied living in a split-level or ranch homes that they grew up in but built executive homes, put their children in designer clothing and more. On page 33 of his book, “Is the American Dream Killing You”?, Paul Stiles states:
“Since the 1980s, American personal savings rates have been going down while personal income has risen and credit card debt has tripled.”
If adults fell prey to the messages, consider how firmly entrenched the entitlement mindset might be for those born during that time. It’s true: Children learn what they live and those who are late Gen X and all of Gen Y have never known any other way of thinking or being.
In part I of this series we examined how something as fundamental as how the very definition of the word success; initially meaning achieving a goal, had devolved to become about material wealth. The the clip by Alain DeBotton urged us to consider how we “suck in” our ideas of success from outside sources. What we are experiencing is a potentially dangerous mind meme – the belief that success means money, prestige and status has gone viral. The problem with any meme is that we are often unaware of its impact on our thoughts, values and behaviors. This unchecked meme is dangerous because it’s at the root of so much unnecessary suffering – personal debt, low self-esteem, corporate greed, mistrust, political backstabbing, stress, and depression – among a few.
Stiles provides an example of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when he states:
“Money only buys happiness up to a point. Once you have clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and food on the table, multiple sources suggest that all the money in the world will not make you a bit happier. Ironically, beyond a certain point, money actually buys unhappiness. After a basic standard of material well-being, happiness comes from family and friends, marriage, leisure activities, and the nature of your work. Ironically, these are all negatively impacted by the excessive pursuit of money, which creates stress, steals family time, alters moods, and breeds friction”…Oh, yeah and also that deathbed regret thing.
The point is that being infected with the meme (previously dubbed “Affluenza”) of never having or being enough can make us miserable, so why DO we accept it as a part of life – like the common cold? Especially since unlike the common cold, we can inoculate ourselves to the meme by mindfully choosing what success means to each of us. Getting inoculated means that when we become the authors of our own ambition, if we come down with an occasional case of piggy-itis, we aren’t likely to suffer unduly or succumb to it.
So what do you think? Do you feel the tug, get sucked-in from time-to-time, or still grapple with your personal definition of success? Please offer your thoughts and take this 30 second poll to identify your “top-o-mind” idea of success – if you answer “other” to the poll choices, a quick comment below will be illuminating and most appreciated.
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This post is right on. To find true success, you have to find where your true joy and happiness come from. Otherwise, when we look outside for our definition of success, we are likely to be misled, and end up feeling empty when we have our “success”.
Just back from an exploratory trip to Kenya to see how we can create sustainable business in the worst slums in the world. What did I learn? Besides the concept of a “freedom number” that Jeanne has linked to in my blog, there were many other lessons around wealth and happiness.
There are a few million very grateful people living in joy in Nairobi in conditions worse than anything you would find in my home town of Denver. I lived with a family there for seven days – our house actually had a toilet (no seat) for which they were very grateful. The kids were in school and both parents worked (12 hours a day) – they were very grateful.
I visited a number of schools and lived with some very young children while there and one of the sad “ahas” was that you could line up 100 of those kids living in the slums and 100 from my wealthy suburb and you would find more happy kids in that slum than in my neighborhood. They did not have the sense of dependency, entitlement and victimization that sometimes comes with having life handed to you on a silver platter.
Making money is not an empowering vision. What are you and your business doing to create significance and meaning in the world around you? You’ll be a lot happier if you have a clear answer to that question.
Chuck Blakeman´s last blog ..Your Freedom Number is the Only Number That Matters.
Submitted on 2010/03/04 at 11:47am
Chuck,
Wow, thanks for sharing your experience of those living in joy in Nairobi. It is strikingly similar to what my husband and I experienced while on an awards trip to Costa Rica. While on an air-conditioned bus going through a village (of dirt-floor, no windows/door huts)we overheard a couple complaining about the breakfast banquet that was served at the resort that morning. As we looked out the window, the sun was shining, children were playing and laughing, people were walking the dirt streets smiling or romping with dogs…there was a contagious air of joy outside. Inside it was cool, the couple droned on now complaining about the free mango juice, the spirit inside the bus felt increasingly heavy, sullen and bored. We were overwhelmed by the fact that those we would consider poor were clearly happier than most of the people on the bus.
Randall,
Thank you…looking inward is exactly what this series is about. Most of us are so busy each day that we don’t take the time for introspection. We plug in to the television, telephone, twitter and other media sources where we are barraged by other people’s ideas and values. When we hear/see the same message enough times (when it has gone viral) we stop questioning its veracity. The sad result of not questioning and looking inward, as you said, “then people are misled, and end up feeling empty when we have our “success”.