Anyone Can Be Successful -- Just Read This Blog Post

Success is an opinion one gives to oneself.

The opinion is granted when a person believes he or she fits an idea.

That idea may take any number of forms:

1. Possession of material wealth
2. Existence in the right circumstances
3. Embodying a set of character traits
4. ...Something else. 

The factors that shape this idea are many.

1. Inherited ideas from parents…
2. Adopted ideas from peers…
3. Ideas gained from experience…

If a person takes his or her idea of success for granted, that idea controls his or her life.

If a person understands the origin of the idea, he or she becomes free.

Where do these ideas come from?

Ideas originate from the intersection of past experience, present experience, and imagination. A person’s idea of success comes from this intersection as well. Wherever this idea of success comes from, it has the potential to control an individual’s thoughts and actions.

One person may believe that success means gaining power by amassing material wealth. Another may believe that success requires one to embody a set of ideal character traits—grit and perseverance, for example. Another may believe that success means feeling generally happy on a daily basis. Still another may have a better idea…

No matter what form the idea takes, it takes its form not on its own accord, but in accordance with a myriad of external factors, over some of which a person has no control. As such, no one’s idea of success can rightly be called one’s own. As a result, firm belief in “success” requires a person to sacrifice his or her own freedom in exchange for the opinion of another person or several others.

When a person believes that success is not absolute, he or she may stop pursuing it. In fact, in seeing success as relative, a person gains power over the concept. While under the illusion that success is absolute, one feels unable to grant a successful opinion to oneself; however, when a person understands that success is relative, he may grant himself the opinion at will.

Anyone can be successful.

Counterargument. If a person believes that success is relative, does not the concept lose its meaning? If anyone can be successful, how can success remain a significant mark of distinction?

If a person understands that success is relative, then the concept of success loses its meaning as an absolute standard by which to judge and be judged. In this way, a relative concept of success cannot provide a meaningful mark of distinction. All success is relative, by this definition. However, this does not prevent individuals from holding views about success. Nor does it prevent them from recognizing their idea of success in others, to greater or lesser degrees.

The ability to recognize one’s idea of success in another, and thereby mark that other as a successful individual, does not in itself represent an increase in freedom. Unless individuals understand the origins of their ideas of success, they will be controlled by their ideas insofar as they evaluate others’ attributes in relation to an illusory “absolute.” Just as they may have given up their freedom in evaluating themselves against an idea of success, they give up still more freedom in evaluating others against the same idea.

While relative concepts of success cannot serve to distinguish among individuals, one may easily determine whether one meets one’s own idea of success. Conformity to one’s own idea of success may be seen as a mark of distinction: authenticity is the word. However, authenticity itself cannot serve as an absolute measure of success, as it, too, is a value determined by myriad factors beyond one’s control. In fact, when a person recognizes that one’s idea of success is determined by such factors, success itself becomes absurd; after all, the only force that remains to guide an individual’s action is the will, which knows no principles.