MINDLESS MUSINGS

Mercedes: Remember when we were kids and Edmond got that whistle for his birthday, and you got a pony? You were so mad that Edmond was happier with his whistle than you were with your pony.

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

Who are these Joneses we keep hearing about?

What is success?

There’s the title for two books right there!

So, how to keep this bite sized? Well, if you have a job that pays the bills and lets you have a little fun you are already doing better than a shit tonne of people. If you only ever compare yourself to poverty-stricken people, your life looks pretty fucking good! You’re welcome, see you next time.

Okay that’s way too flippant and it also removes aspiration which can be a good thing if it is channelled properly. My focus here needs to be much more on defining success (as in a life well lived). The Joneses often just muddy the water. Competition with others, especially in something as obscure as ‘success’ is a fool’s errand.

I’ll throw out a few generic measures of this mysterious goal: Travel, education, physical traits (beauty, physique, strength and fitness), corporate status, material possessions, money to burn, power and ability to intimidate, kindness, spirituality, love, kids. Any of those hit a nerve? If they all do, you may be beyond help.

There’s that glibness again. It is possible that they all matter, but I am hoping that they score differently in terms of priority. They probably also differ in terms of timeline i.e. Kids by 30 or maybe 1^st million or Mount Everest by 30; enlightenment by thirty maybe?

I’m not writing a self-help guide here, but it is essential to point out 2 things:

1. Nothing is set in stone: you must remain flexible.
2. Goals change: what matters now may not always matter.

I will avoid the temptation to elaborate on those other than this: adaptability and perseverance can be superpowers. Here endeth the sermon.

My fascination lies with where these measurements of success come from. There’re the usual suspects: family, friends, society, government, media (this can of worms we will open later), school and religion. All of these will have an effect on you. Positive or negative. They may draw you in or repel you, but they will all be a part of the script for that voice you hear inside.

If you factor in your inherent temperament and actual life circumstances and experiences, the stuff affecting your choices and behaviour has just gone from extremely complex to unfathomable. Free will debates aside, we can at least agree that a lot of the choices we make are not 100% our own. We are constantly bombarded with influences and knowing this only offers more protection; no one is immune.

The mission I am suggesting here is trying to figure out what are YOUR ideas of success? When the curtain comes down it’s going to be you looking back and judging; most of those people you were trying to impress or outshine will be gone in one way or another. You would like to believe that all those imaginary boxes you ticked were the ones YOU cared about. The right ones? Who gets to say what that is?

Will you feel fulfilled knowing that you have travelled to almost every country on the planet? Does your bucket list require passport stamps. Let’s say that’s your goal and you are smashing it at present. You’re at a party telling people about your recent trip to Paris and Venice. Another intrepid guest asks if you visited Bordeaux and Rome. “Shit! Maybe I should have said France and Italy”.

If that interaction caused you noticeable discomfort, you may need to check your motivation. If you find yourself feeling like you missed something you would have enjoyed, you may need to alter your idea of what being a world traveller is; as in the places themselves, the people and experiences matter more than the sheer number. A statement like ‘I just got back from the US’ would often incur similar queries; New York, California, all those other places in the middle. The passport stamp still only counts for the USA though.

If you find yourself feeling like you have been one upped, you may be participating in that fool’s errand I mention earlier. Was your motivation more about clout? Is this really your passion or is it what you want to be seen doing? Take away the impressed and/or jealous looks from people listening to your adventures. Forget about social media attention. Without all that, do you still feel the wanderlust?

Only you can answer that, but if the answer is no, you could save yourself lots of time, energy and money, that can be spent on trying to find your genuine passion. Remember also that these things are on a continually changing scale of priority.

I apologise if I seem to be knocking travel, it’s just that it seems to be growing in popularity and that intrigues me. You could run anything feasible through this test to give you a different perspective. Feasible as in doable; happiness or success are not actual things you can do. They may be the outcomes you hope for, but they should not be goals in and of themselves.

Of course everything is open to dispute; beauty can be a target, but it is subjective (in the eye of the beholder). Power is very often dependent on the situation. Oh, we’re going to have fun with this!

There is so much to mull over on this subject, and for me, it is one of the most important in terms of how we live and interact with each other; why we work and strive. I will definitely be revisiting this idea many times in the future.