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Is it wrong to expect everyone to be capable or deserving of success?
It is my belief that it is our birthright to be successful, but that we have to fight for it.
Is it wrong to think that everyone should expect to be successful in life? Is it inevitable that some people will always live unfulfilled lives? What do you think?
Lee Wilkinson 20+
E G 10+
Ash Mashhadi
1. Should people learn to be content with what they have?
2. What do we do for those people who are suffering because they feel they deserve less than others?
3. Is the desire for more love, more happiness, more possessions all the same thing?
4. If person A gets more, does that mean there is less for person B?
I agree that the desire to get more just because we want more (i.e. greed) is at the heart of many of our problems.
E G 10+
At the third question I would say that all that desires have something in common :selfishness, but all those desires are different by their nature.At the forth question my answer is yes because the person A gets more , not what is essential.But all that answers doesn't solve any problem.
and in my opinion if we want to get more just because we want more or not will create conflicts whatever.
The clue of all problems is to not be we selfish , but how to get more without being selfish I mean, without deserving more for ourselves?...............there is a way and that way is the religious one.
E G 10+
Ash Mashhadi
E G 10+
Ash Mashhadi
Humans are, I believe, designed to want to excel. We love pushing ourselves beyond normal limits and I think this can be positive.
Harald Jezek 50+
Ash Mashhadi
Steve Frazee 500+
The concept of "ideal" suggests that there is a lifestyle to which we can arrive and be done with our quest. That's not true. Thriving is an ongoing process based. As our worldview evolves so does that which fulfills us. What fulfilled me at thirty is different than what fulfills me at forty-fiive.
I like Jefferson's concept of the "pursuit of happiness" which is an ongoing quest for the evolution of self.
Ash Mashhadi
In my personal experience though it is that journey that has taught me and transformed me more than I could have expected at the beginning. As someone once said "success is what you become rather than where you arrive". I'm paraphrasing horribly there :-)
Piotr Wiśniewski 10+
...Ash, you wrote that people rarely do specific things that could bring on more happiness to their lives. This is, sadly, true. Why do you think that is the case? I would say this could be due to either of the two:
(1) people don't know how to do achieve true happiness or they don't yet know what true happiness means for them
(2) as Jane McGonigal put it in her book (which I hope to read soon :) ) - "reality is broken"; from her TEDTalk I understand that the way in which our reality works does not encourage life-time projects such as a "quest" of searching for happiness and does not give constant feedback with which to know if you're on the right track
As you said, we need to fight for it.
Ash Mashhadi
What do you think?
Steve Frazee 500+
We don't ask each other at dinner parties, "have you found your purpose," we ask, "what do you do?"
Aristotle was on the right track. We need to build teaching systems for human thriving.
Ash Mashhadi
I would love to go to dinner parties where people asked each other that. When I ask anything like it, I worry that they might think I'm being too serious.
Ash Mashhadi
@Piotr - thank you for your kind words, this is one of the issues that occupies much of my time. I totally agree with your point that too often the nature of success is defined for us. I feel strongly that as humans we need to exercise our own right to choose the nature of our success. That takes a lot of effort, time and energy, but it is OUR choice. Of course, as Anantha quite rightly points out below, we then need to act to make it real.
Piotr Wiśniewski 10+
I watched the Talks you marked as related. It seems that none of the 8 secrets is connected with fame or fortune. What a surprise ;) ! Csikszentmihalyi goes even further - in my opinion when he gives the example of a composer and describes his flow as "taking a piece of paper and putting down little marks", he actually points out that experiencing flow can happen to anyone doing anything. Having said that, I don't believe there are people doomed to live unfulfilled lives. But I do fear that today "success" has wrong (or to be more specific: very superficial) connotations.
I don't think there's something wrong with expecting people to be succesful. The problem is we may tend to judge other people's successes according to our own standards, achievements, hopes and desires. Maybe there are 6 billion definitions of "success"? It's a pity that more often than not young people are told what success IS about rather than they are presented with possibilities of what success MIGHT BE about in their case. I'm glad the Talks you suggested in your post describe what may lead to success and not what success is.
Ash Mashhadi
@Glenda - that's always the issue isn't it? Everyone has their own definition of success, but ultimately it's not too important in that we all measure our success by what we define individually - the goals we set for ourselves. Being unfulfilled would be failing to achieve them, whether it is love or financial independence or changing the world.
The essential question for me here circles around the fact that so many people live a life that they themselves would define as unfulfilled. The single person who dreams of a wonderful relationship; the wage-slave who works in a soulless cubicle, etc.
I see people every day who wish for what they would call a better life (according to their own definitions) but are they doing all they can to reshape that life? Rarely.
What are your thoughts on this?
Glenda Barron
Ash Mashhadi
1. We need to teach our kids to be accurately self-critical. Not over-critical or afraid to see their own excellence.
2. We can blame TV & popular culture for setting an artificial and overly-narrow definition of success
3. It does start with education, but we need to remember that our education is a lifelong activity
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Jordan Miller 20+
the fact of the matter is anyone has the potential and choice to be happy but many will choose not to be. some through no fault of their own, others will mostly bring it on themselves.
Anantha Shayana. D
In my humble opinion,
Expecting success won't bake the noodles. Working towards it does! No debt goes unpaid in this Universe and every act of pronounced bravery is recognized. We just take time to realize it. The rich may feel that the poor are unhappy. But the poor know happiness means to them. I realized this fact when I saw that my house-maid's 8 year old daughter was happily playing in the Sun bare footed while my brother was crying that his shoes were stolen- "$68! I can't imagine I lost them" he complained! Success (or satisfaction or happiness or salvation) comes to us at various levels, in various installments, and in various forms.
The individual's ability to recognize and collect these small pebbles of joy scattered all over the beach decides his/ her level of happiness in his/her life.
Yes, it's not wrong to expect success, but its better to work towards it.
Thank you
Glenda Barron