This week I read an article titled The 9 Principles That People Who Feel Successful Say They Live By by Bill Connolly.
This article talks about redefining what success means since the word and society are constantly changing. I agree with the author when he says that success is a abstract concept that means different things to different people. Since the author and most of society today does not accept what success used to mean they completely redefined it. However, since success means different things to different people I decided to explain why the old way can still be used today!
The dictionary defines success as “the attainment of wealth, position, honors or the like.” The author states that like the old version of success this is also societies norm today. The author says that this is a bad thing but what if it was not? Its all about how you interpret the words, sometimes not everything is meant to be taken literal.
Wealth is being assumed to mean money, therefore if you have money you are successful. However wealth does not have to mean money. One can be wealthy of friends, family, food, or more importantly you can be wealthy of time. Time is something most of us with we had more of so why cant a persons wealth be measured by the time they have to do the things they want to do.
Next is position, this is assuming that a person must have a high position in their career to be successful. However why cant position be defined as mother, father, brother, sister, friend, volunteer, etc. A position is a spot in which you put yourself in that can make you happy, it does not have to mean to be in a spot to earn the most about of money. It can also mean a position to earn the most wealth like the examples above.
Last is honors or rewards, this is also assumed to mean a person who receives praise from a superior. Why does it need to mean something negative. To be honored is a positive thing. Someone can be honored to buy you lunch, someone can be honored to be called a grandmother. Someone could be honored to wake up every morning. Honors and rewards dont have to be pieces of paper with your name on it or a sum of money.
Like I said earlier I agree with the statement that success is an abstract idea and difficult to define. However I do not agree with the idea of having to through out the whole idea of success because based of the first read of the definition it sounds like it is all about money and greed. Not all of us in society are searching for money or power, most of us want the same things. Success is but a word and everyone can interpret it for themselves. So I challenge people to not redefine the word and its dictionary meaning but to find out what success means for you. Dont get all hung up on the words and what society thinks.
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