JustAsking
Sexy Member
Earl,
What an interesting question. But it seems you have a few things mixed together here and it might help to separate them. I think there is a difference between success, contentment, happiness, and a meaningful life.
Next, I think we often look to external criteria for defining success or a meaningful life. This leads to lack of contentment and lack of happiness (which might not be the same thing). Using external criteria creates artificial goals which even when achieved do not necessarily lead to contentment or happiness.
For example, if one thought that the world expected great political success from you in order to judge you as "successful", then you might be driven to become President. There is no higher office in this country when it comes to political success. But notice that the office really confers no contentment, no happiness, and even worse, usually half the USA population thinks you are a schmuck.
However, it is really quite hard to extract the external criteria from your definition of success or meaningful life. One grows up with a constant bombardment of people and institutions urging you to higher achievement and evaluating your success in different ways. It makes it almost impossible to imagine being able to completely determine your own criteria, but that is precisely what is essential for attaining contentment or happiness.
Notice that there is a really wide range of what people use as success criteria. For example, consider the highly paid business executive striving to give his kids everything in life, and send them to really prestigious private schools and universities so they too can be successful in business.
Then consider the guy who sells his house and takes his family to the Sudan to volunteer in refugee camps as relief workers. Which guy is the more successful? Which guy has the more meaningful life? Which guy's family will find meaning? Which guy's kids will end up living meaningful lives?
The amazing thing is that with such a wide spectrum of criteria for judging success, the questions I just posed are hard to answer. It is difficult to point to either case an say that the guy's life is meaningful or not.
This has to mean that one's criteria for success or a meaningful life can be anything you want, so why not set up your own criteria that would lead to a happiness or contentment.
I have two talented sons, one who is going to graduate school and one who dropped out of college before he graduated. The dropout, however, has completely dropped off the grid and is creating an extremely interesting self-sufficient life for himself in the high desert in the Southwest. In their own way, each of them are becoming two of the most interesting people I know. At this point, I could not tell you which one of them will be more content or happy with his life.
What I do know is that any visions of what I wanted for them to be successful when they were young seem really unimaginative and almost cheesy compared to what each of them is doing with their lives.
Earl, how old are you? I would like to say that I didn't reach the point where I was content or happy until I was 50 or so. That is because it took me that long to jettison the baggage I had that was full of everyone else's expections of me in regard to success or a meaningful life.
I believe one can do this a lot earlier in life, however.
What an interesting question. But it seems you have a few things mixed together here and it might help to separate them. I think there is a difference between success, contentment, happiness, and a meaningful life.
Next, I think we often look to external criteria for defining success or a meaningful life. This leads to lack of contentment and lack of happiness (which might not be the same thing). Using external criteria creates artificial goals which even when achieved do not necessarily lead to contentment or happiness.
For example, if one thought that the world expected great political success from you in order to judge you as "successful", then you might be driven to become President. There is no higher office in this country when it comes to political success. But notice that the office really confers no contentment, no happiness, and even worse, usually half the USA population thinks you are a schmuck.
However, it is really quite hard to extract the external criteria from your definition of success or meaningful life. One grows up with a constant bombardment of people and institutions urging you to higher achievement and evaluating your success in different ways. It makes it almost impossible to imagine being able to completely determine your own criteria, but that is precisely what is essential for attaining contentment or happiness.
Notice that there is a really wide range of what people use as success criteria. For example, consider the highly paid business executive striving to give his kids everything in life, and send them to really prestigious private schools and universities so they too can be successful in business.
Then consider the guy who sells his house and takes his family to the Sudan to volunteer in refugee camps as relief workers. Which guy is the more successful? Which guy has the more meaningful life? Which guy's family will find meaning? Which guy's kids will end up living meaningful lives?
The amazing thing is that with such a wide spectrum of criteria for judging success, the questions I just posed are hard to answer. It is difficult to point to either case an say that the guy's life is meaningful or not.
This has to mean that one's criteria for success or a meaningful life can be anything you want, so why not set up your own criteria that would lead to a happiness or contentment.
I have two talented sons, one who is going to graduate school and one who dropped out of college before he graduated. The dropout, however, has completely dropped off the grid and is creating an extremely interesting self-sufficient life for himself in the high desert in the Southwest. In their own way, each of them are becoming two of the most interesting people I know. At this point, I could not tell you which one of them will be more content or happy with his life.
What I do know is that any visions of what I wanted for them to be successful when they were young seem really unimaginative and almost cheesy compared to what each of them is doing with their lives.
Earl, how old are you? I would like to say that I didn't reach the point where I was content or happy until I was 50 or so. That is because it took me that long to jettison the baggage I had that was full of everyone else's expections of me in regard to success or a meaningful life.
I believe one can do this a lot earlier in life, however.