What is success, anyway?

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Inspired by this thread: This is the thread where we ruminate on our recent successes
Besides being a word that I could not spell correctly until I was well into college, what IS success? How do YOU measure it?

In my head, success does not equal accomplishing things. Or having/getting things.
But I am not quite sure what it *does* include. How about you, seriously--what do you count as success?

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i measure success in my bedroom, with a bent ruler.

― non-u, Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:26 (twenty-two years ago)

don't make mne hurt you

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Success is being happy.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:29 (twenty-two years ago)

more pertinently, don't make me make you hurt yourself.

― non-u, Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:30 (twenty-two years ago)

hmmmmm. That makes me wonder how to define happiness,
24-hour happiness, anf for how long can it be sustained? A week, a year? Or happy for a few moments per day? Sorry don't mean to be infuriating, just being pensive.
xpost

[non-u plz go fuck with another thread]

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Happiness, as in contentment. Understanding that bad things happen and good things happen. Spending less time craving possessions and achievements, and just enjoying being in the moment.

That said, I'd be happier if I didn't have to bloody go to work tomorrow, and this research essay's giving me the shits.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

rinpoche yandna truidern once said 'vague buddhist sentiment is never the path to productivity, especially when research papers are concerned'

apparently he couldn't feel happiness.

― non-u, Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:46 (twenty-two years ago)

whenever i post something on here it says success! and you know what? I believe it.

sorry for being a webtard. I've had a deeply unsuccessful week.

― non-u, Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Success is being alive in the first place.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 18 April 2004 00:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Being alive doesn't strike me as success, and being happy seems too selfish (for me--meaning *I* would feel guilty working towards being happy as the measure of success, it seems too selfish. This is not meant to judge either of you), but I'm taking these things that are said and thinking--could *I* think about success like this?--and so far I can't seem to. I can't seem to identify ANYTHING actually that would seem like success. It is puzzling.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Looking for answers to some things can make you go mental. I think part of success is to *not* look for answers to heaps of stuff.

Sounds woolly, doesn't it? I'm sorry.

Essentially, if you're happy, you're successful. Some people claim to be successful, but are not actually happy at all. To them I say, 'meh'.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

That's true. I would want to say you're a success even if you're unhappy though.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I disagree, because if you're successful at something, but you're still not happy, then are you really successful at all?

There's a discrepancy between success at a particular thing, and being successful as a person. For example, once I won a poetry competition, but I wasn't happy, so I didn't consider that a successful time.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess my problem with happiness being success is that it seems a selfish measure. Am I a success in life just because I managed to please myself? It implies no contribution beyond providing for one's own pleasure. Maybe I do have somewhat of a criteria, and it seems to include making some sort of contribution to making the world a better place. But since all individual efforts are by definition very very small, it would be difficult to establish even that--save having invented the cure for AIDS/Cancer etc.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I really don't see how happiness equal selfishness. I guess it depends on how you derive your happiness.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:26 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean as goal--it seems to aim for my own happiness is selfish as a goal in life, compared to other measures of success

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:28 (twenty-two years ago)

What if my ambition is to become a failure, and the ambition is fulfilled? Am I a success?

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:31 (twenty-two years ago)

If you're happy, why not? :)

There's nothing wrong with being selfish, as long as it doesn't hurt other people. Everyone has to be selfish to some extent.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Good question. I guess it depends what you set out to do. Perhaps my problem is that I do not know what I have set out to do.

xpost

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Happiness is my *only* goal in life. A largely unattainable one it seems.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:33 (twenty-two years ago)

There's nothing wrong with being selfish,

I guess one of my assumptions in life is that it is wrong. But I have been taught everywhere, in life, from childhood, that I do not have the right to anything; I simply do not matter. At all, and to insist on mattering is somehow wrong.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I think there's something terribly wrong with being selfish, which is possibly why I am the worlds doormat.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Orbit: Yikes.

You're the centre of your existence. Everything is secondary to that. Family, friends, etc.

You matter more than anything. Life's too short to pretend otherwise.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I am not part of the equation.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:41 (twenty-two years ago)

There's an equation?

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess so. It's what I have been told anyway. O nevermind. Just a way to explaining that not only am I not the center of my existence, I was told I have no place in it at all, for a very long time. But I don't mean to get too personal--I was just pondering about success and it somehow devolved.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

But it does go some to way to explaining why you don't have a clear view of what success is.

Success is a very personal thing. In order to attain and experience it, you need to understand that you are that experience.

Eeek, that looks a bit religious. I am not religious.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

success is the things you aimed to achieve

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:51 (twenty-two years ago)

"she knows theres no success like failure, and that failures no success at all"

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

huh?

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Happiness is one thing. Success is another. Same pair of trousers, different pockets, if you will.

Success could be defined as having another person in this ever-crowded world finding you to be of some value.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

bob dylan quote. I could never quite figure out what he was on about.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:57 (twenty-two years ago)

jim, are you the jim that has that blog, that someone linked to recently, that was good? it was kind of grime/jungle/london/wistful/psychogeographic/sinclairian

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 18 April 2004 01:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Success and happiness go hand-in-hand. If you want to be successful, you want to be happy in that success. Otherwise you wouldn't want to be successful.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 18 April 2004 02:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I think happiness is derived from being successful at, at least, something. therefore, self esteem comes in to play here.

And, no, not that blogger.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 18 April 2004 02:05 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, sorry jim. im sure you are good too

what was that blog, anyone? it was good, but i cant remember how i got to it

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 18 April 2004 02:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Success is creating really crappy fan art:
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0YgANAzUgPIdpOChqmzBohAdA9h*CdyYJBrbtid7orcJu9elxy1KpBtElEyE5gCq4W!4OrTD9ZAlagWHWqwEwmH1cnWkuxPHK4Vbpn1hk*p!6WHVG8zi8ucxvx2MiaApzmnozWpZEO0Eqlq8qX9clBw/craig-ash-mannyfanart.bmp?dc=4675466826442367050

― Dante-Cubed (Sean3), Sunday, 18 April 2004 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

jesus god man, go to the mall.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 02:59 (twenty-two years ago)

ok, back to pondering. Success as someone else caring about you? I don't know about that either, it seems so small, and could you ever trust that they really cared? I couldn't. Well maybe at one time in my life I could, but I can't anymore. I think perhaps the comment about just not thinking about it being healthier might be right.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 04:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Success = getting laid

― Dante-Cubed (Sean3), Sunday, 18 April 2004 04:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Getting laid is positively mundane!

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 04:29 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.earthwisdom.com/sanctuary/gallery/success.jpg
http://www.newthotart.com/images/success.jpg
http://www.gilford.com/images/success.jpg

― ahem, Sunday, 18 April 2004 04:54 (twenty-two years ago)

So, let's recap.
Success is standing on the top of a tall mountain, dousing oneself with body paint and jumping up and down, or placing your desk in the middle of the highway waiting for a semi to take you out.

hmmmm

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 18 April 2004 06:08 (twenty-two years ago)

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