Success is something that is easy to define but hard to pin down. The easy part is recognizing it means being ahead of a previous position. The hard part is determining what the better position really means. If I take a test once and get a certain grade on it, then retake that same test and get a better grade, by definition, that’s a success. But if my first grade was a 50 and my second grade was a 55, did I really succeed?
One of the reasons I believe many sports are so popular (and likewise why soccer had such a hard time getting a foothold in this country, is because there is a clear line between succeeding and not. Each contest ends with a winner, someone who succeeded, whether it’s one team against another, or one gymnast against a field of competitors. But to go back to the test question, say one of the other gymnasts finished tenth in last year’s meet and fourth in this year’s. Did they succeed?
That question can only be answered individually, with how each person defines success. A team that lost by 30 last game but only 10 this game (predicted to lose by 20 both games) has a moral victory, but most coaches will tell you those don’t exist. Likewise, in that ten-point loss, the QB had the game of his career – 3 TD’s, 0 INT’s, a few hundred yards. Did he succeed when his team failed? My last sports analogy before I move on (ironically enough) is the scene in “Bull Durham” where Tim Robbins is on the bench, happy with the great inning he through. Kevin Costner asks him why he’s so happy about the inning considering all the bad pitches he threw. Tim wants to enjoy the moment of a successful inning. Kevin says “The moment’s over. Move on.”
As an author, arguably one of the most solo occupations out there, the question of success is my own to define I guess. Was the reading last Tuesday a success? Well, I had a lot of people turn out, sold many copies of my books, people told me how impressed they were with my talent, (and I didn’t almost pass out in the middle of it,) so from one perspective, success. From another, I still have to tend bar, I still have to worry about how I’m paying my bills, I still am not listed in the NYTimes bestseller list, so…does that mean I failed?
The unfortunate metrics of our society tie the measure of a person’s success to material standing and monetary gain and make no bones about labeling those who don’t reach such plateaus as failures. The gradient levels of measured success exist only within the communities of our peers. People consider me a success because I write, I stay at it (more or less) and I am good at it. But do I? There is still part of me that believes in that movie-ending moment in life, where everything finally works out, and in that world, success is me having to do nothing but write, enjoying the fruits of my labor.
It’s when I don’t think about it I feel most successful, when I not measuring myself up against anyone else, or my own expectations, that I can see the positive outcomes of what I do. It is a struggle for me to get there sometimes, just as it’s a struggle for me to not think of myself as a failure sometimes because I’m not measuring up against my impossible yardstick. And that’s the rub.
Success comes to us on our own by how we define it. Maybe my yardstick is impossible. But it isn’t just by lopping off the top half of it to make me seem taller that is a success. Yes, tempering expectations and being able to enjoy the moment are important, but more important are the benchmarks I put on the yardstick in the first place: who I am as a person, how I live, how I treat others, and how I treat myself. Maybe I’m not the next John Irving or Stephen King.
But I guarantee neither of them is the next me, either.
PopcornJackTerry 