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| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋu |
2005.05.16 – The key element of success is the irreplaceable, fundamental ingredient that most experts are blissfully unaware of: if you’re planning your life, or trying to transform your life, you cannot pursue success without first figuring out what success is and what are its underpinnings.
Experts and talking heads superficially assume that success equates to money. That works for talking heads because, invariably, their audience knows less about success than they do; and, of course, they’re a talking head. Aren’t talking heads a success? “Dressing for success,” Writing a Resume for Success” and “Interviewing for Success” all automatically assume that you’re a money-oriented wannabe corporate-climber executive. Neither Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein nor Teresa (the Catholic nun, she’s not my mother or sister) followed the conventional rules for success.
People desiring more money seem unable to focus on anything else or to grasp the implications that some of the world’s wealthiest people are depressed and unhappy. The rich never have enough money, cars, homes, jets or opportunities to show off their wealth. They’ve become bling-addicts. They discover it isn’t really their wealth that they enjoy, you can only spend so much time in a yacht, jet or mansion before going claustrophobic. You have a bicycle or weights you haven’t exercised with for months. They have a tennis court they haven’t used for months. The difference is show. What really inflates them is seeing others envy their wealth. That’s what addicted them; and they always need more wealth to increase that envy and more opportunities to show off their wealth to feed their bling addition. They feed on your envy. On the news this week, some bling-addict gave his son a $7 million party and had the khu•tzᵊp•âhꞋ to call this banquet to hedonism a “son of the Tor•âhꞋ-commandments” (the translation of Bar-Mi•tzᵊwâhꞋ). Is this monumentally shallow display success? Is success an empty bubble?
Meanwhile, you play into their game, mindlessly allowing yourself to be consumed by envy and diverted from pursuing your own success.
Perhaps sex is the measure of success? Everything is sold with sex. Being sexy and beautiful is confused with success. Entertainers go to absurd lengths to “enhance” their physical appearance. Does Michael Jackson or a pathetic old actress making herself up to be 20 look happy to you? Is that success? Mix sex with religious deception and you get suicide bombers. Is that success? Are porn stars and prostitutes the ultimate successes?
If not money, or any of the things money can buy, or sex, then the meaning of success lies at a deeper level, a realization that really shouldn’t be surprising considering that so few find success that produces happiness. That also explains why those with money and sex are often unhappy and, by definition therefore, not a success. This is a clue. Success and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Therefore, to pursue success, one must define and pursue happiness. This is where many get lost. Temporal happiness can be found in money, sex, drugs, etc. However, these things bring only temporary pleasure and that’s what most people settle for without ever finding real happiness.
Happiness resides at a still deeper level: being satisfied, deep in your heart, with yourself, which includes being happy with the accomplishments that contribute to defining you — your fruits, i.e., your good works. Only when you are accomplishing what you feel is a meaningful and worthwhile contribution to the world does your life obtain meaning and worth. That’s when you feel satisfaction with yourself — success and happiness. Sure, you need to prosper, and should prosper, monetarily. However, if you are to achieve happiness then the accumulation of bling cannot become your driving force; envy-dependency cannot consume you or become you or you become dependent on the envy of others, rather than your own efforts and contributions, for your feelings of worth. When fans or enviers find someone else to idolize or envy, as they always do sooner or later, then the abandoned bling addict is left a depressed, often suicide-prone, failure.
Here’s another obvious factor that experts rarely give its deserved emphasis. If Marilyn Monroe gauged her success on her mastery of the theory of relativity then she was a raging failure. If, on the other hand, Stephen Hawking or an eminent scientist or economist gauges his success on being the successor to Elvis Presley then he is a raging failure. Success depends upon personal perspective that is necessarily related to matching one’s abilities to one’s goals for success. If you want to be successful, find out what productive contribution you’re best suited to, stop wasting your life envying Hollywood glitter and other diversions so that you can, instead, invest your time and focus your abilities in educating yourself and honing your skills to pursue your unique contribution with all of your energy.
Being happy with your accomplishments implies yet another element: purpose. As we’ve shown, sometimes those whom we think of as successful are, in reality, failures. What about the converse? Can those we usually think of as ordinary, a truck driver or sanitation worker, be a success? This question exposes an underlying assumption: are we defined by our job? Are Bill Gates and a truck driver fundamentally different because they have different jobs and earn grossly different incomes? Is a petty criminal who is paid millions because he can run fast and catch a ball more successful than a medical researcher; or someone who, perhaps, makes more than Bill Gates by operating an international drug and prostitution cartel? One’s contributions determines success and happiness, but one’s job and income neither defines the person nor influences his or her potential for success. Job and income depend on bling and envy, often having no connection to any meaningful contribution or potential for success.
When someone asks you what you are, if your response superficially reduces you to your job or career then, if you want to achieve success, you must seriously reevaluate who and what you are. This means getting down to the serious question of identifying the factor that underpins your perspective of success; that factor is your personal purpose. You cannot succeed without making a meaningful contribution with your life, and you cannot do anything meaningful without understanding the underlying purpose that gives meaning to your life.
Perhaps you answer with being a good husband (or wife) or father (mother). That’s an essential and laudable contribution, and a superficial cop-out. Is your wife or child your only purpose in life? You have no purpose of your own? What legacy, then, are you leaving them? Are they to be like you with no purpose for their own life, just their spouse and children? How happy and successful is that? Many apes and chimpanzees are also caring mates and parents. What’s special about homo sapiens? Is there a purpose unique to homo sapiens — and, therefore, to your life?
You can go back and reread, check the links, because the unavoidable connection is apparently too subtle for most people to recognize: success is inextricably linked not to money or sex, but to your own personal definition of your own personal purpose in life and how committed you are to achieving your own personal purpose in life. If you’ve realized your own personal purpose in life and are pursuing it with all of your vigor then you’re one happy person, a raving success; if not, then you’re one unhappy, pathetic dead person walking, a hopeless failure.
There is yet an enormous pitfall that regularly transforms success to failure: mistaking a bubble for purpose. Purpose is the only foundation upon which success can be built. If that purpose is a bubble, when it bursts, what was perceived as success is suddenly exposed as false, meaningless and futile — failure.
Back in the first century, Ribi Yehoshua taught about building a house on bedrock rather than a castle on sand (The Netzarim Reconstruction of Hebrew Matityahu 7.24-27). His wisdom has rarely been grasped, much less matched. This is the key to getting on track to success. You must complete your foundation first. That means that the first step toward success is researching your purpose so that you’re not relying on a false bubble that can burst and transform your efforts into failure.
Understanding life’s purpose isn’t merely for religious fanatics. It’s pivotal to success, the fulcrum upon which success rests. Get it wrong and you fail.
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