I recently found myself reflecting on the concept of success. It’s something I’ve contemplated before, but this time I wanted to look more closely at what we mean when we call someone “successful”.
What exactly have they succeeded at? And who decided that was the goal?
Traditional success
If you’re like most people, when you think of success, you probably think of money, fame, power, an impressive career, the perfect relationship, perhaps a family, and a nice big house. Oh, and a fancy car!
These are the images we grow up surrounded by. We see them in films, advertisements, and social media. We’re encouraged to study hard, get into good schools, and land high-paying jobs. The details vary between families and cultures, but there’s usually a fairly recognisable picture of what “doing well in life” looks like.
There are understandable reasons for this. Money provides security and opportunities. A fulfilling career can give us purpose. Relationships can bring love, excitement and belonging. I want these things in my life too.
But sometimes along the way, these things we’re pursuing aren’t actually making our lives better. That’s where I think this view of success can become toxic.
Toxic success
Imagine working towards a promotion. You put in longer hours, take on more responsibility, and sacrifice some of your free time. Eventually, you get it. You’re proud of yourself, and rightly so.
But now you realize there’s another position above yours. Someone your age is already there. You begin to envy them. The achievement that once seemed so significant begins to feel ordinary, and you start looking towards the next promotion.
When does it become enough?
If success depends on where you stand relative to other people, there will almost always be a reason to feel behind. Even as your circumstances improve, your expectations can move with them.
I’m also interested in how much choice we really have in these situations. You might want a healthier balance between work and the rest of your life, but if the people competing with you are willing to sacrifice more, stepping back can feel like putting yourself at a disadvantage.
This is what drew me to the idea of Moloch, which I first encountered through Liv Boeree’s discussion on the Lex Fridman podcast, and subsequently through Scott Alexander’s essay, Meditations on Moloch. The idea that interested me was how competition can push people towards decisions they wouldn’t necessarily choose for themselves.
Consider a workplace where everyone regularly stays late. You might be perfectly capable of doing your job within normal working hours, but leaving on time starts to feel risky. Will you seem less committed? Will someone else get the promotion because they’re always available?
So you stay later too. Perhaps you sacrifice exercise, cancel plans with friends, or keep checking your emails when you’re supposed to be resting. Other colleagues see this and feel pressure to do the same. Gradually, being available all the time becomes the expectation.
Nobody necessarily wanted that arrangement. You might all prefer to finish work, go home, and enjoy your evenings. But each person has a reason to keep participating, because being the first to step back could carry a personal cost. The competition creates a situation where protecting your position can come at the expense of the life you’re working to support.
That’s what I find troubling. A decision can make sense within the competition while still being detrimental to your wellbeing. And even if you get the promotion, the same expectations may follow you into the new role.
You don’t have to be particularly greedy or obsessed with status to get caught up in it. You might simply be afraid of falling behind.
I think this deserves more attention when we talk about success. We celebrate what someone has achieved, but how often do we ask what it cost them? Their health? Their relationships? Years spent doing something they disliked?
And would they willingly make the same trade again?
True success
So, what does true success look like to me?
Being healthy. Having the freedom to do what I want with my life. And having enough inner peace that my happiness isn’t entirely at the mercy of my circumstances.
These things are harder to display than a fancy car or an impressive job title. You can’t look at someone’s photograph and know whether they are at peace with themselves. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. The most visible signs of success are the easiest to compare, so they become the things we chase.
But I think it’s worth asking: if other people admire your life, yet you don’t enjoy living it, how successful are you really?
I still have ambitions. I work at a medtech startup, and I care deeply about making it successful. The work excites me, and developing something that could improve people’s health feels meaningful to me. I’m happy to put considerable effort into that.
At the same time, I’m acutely aware that making a company successful is success within the context of modern society. It matters, but it is not the be-all and end-all of my existence. I don’t want to lose sight of my health, my freedom, or my ability to enjoy life in the pursuit of it.
There are trade-offs, of course. Meaningful work can be stressful. Committing to something limits the time available for other things. Having freedom doesn’t mean avoiding every responsibility, and having inner peace doesn’t mean never feeling disappointed.
For me, the question is whether I’m choosing those commitments consciously, and whether they continue to serve a life I actually want to live.
I’d like to be able to pursue a goal wholeheartedly without making my happiness conditional on its outcome. To care about what I’m building, while remembering that there is still a life to be lived if things don’t go as planned.
That is the kind of success I aspire to. I haven’t mastered it. But it gives me a way to judge my life that feels more honest than measuring how impressive it looks to everyone else.
Defining it for yourself
I don’t expect everyone to share my definition. Your priorities may be different from mine, and they may change throughout your life.
Financial security matters enormously when you don’t have it. Caring for a family brings responsibilities that can limit your choices. Health itself is not entirely within our control. I wouldn’t want my definition of success to become another standard by which someone feels they’ve failed.
What I do encourage is taking the time to examine the goals you’re living by.
Which ones did you choose? Which ones did you inherit? Are you still pursuing something because you want it, or because you’ve spent so long working towards it that you’ve forgotten to ask?
For a blog called 100 Years The Dream, this feels particularly relevant. I want a long life, but I also want to enjoy the years I’m trying so hard to preserve. I don’t want to spend them endlessly preparing for a future in which I finally give myself permission to be happy.
I hope to accomplish plenty along the way. But I’d also like to recognise when the life I have is already one worth enjoying.
What does success mean to you, and how much of that definition is truly yours?