What is a 'successful' person?

[TheFifthElement]

In the homework thread one of the issues that's cropped up is the question of what is it that makes a person a 'successful' person. How do we measure the value of a person's life? Is it even possible?

So, what say you Lit-net? What makes a person a 'successful' person?

[Pensive]

Like a person who has pleased Almighty God so much that he has got a place in heaven? :p

(That should have some weight if you are a believer!)

[manolia]

It depends on the field in which one is successful i guess.

[hoope]

Success has many aspects from one's point of view & its differs
To set a goal in your life & then achieve it is known as success , to have a dream come true is a success . Tow ork hard , day & nyt for getting a higher position is a success.

And such person is successful...
Somehow when a person has a very high morals , & behaviour , everyone loves him
though got a simple job but have a happy family .. is also called a successful person
To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness in the world , and when u get that u r also a successful person .

What matter in being successful , is that we r content about what we have & to work hard to obtain a higher position with hard work , with faith & not cheeting.

Success requires honesty in what we do , coz we way get what we want but not in a legal way .

[MattG]

Success is whatever the individual defines it to be.

[Chava]

Success is when you're satisfied?

[1n50mn14]

A person who is happy with themselves and has accomplished the things they have aspired to do in their life. Only the individual should be measuring the individual's success- we all have our own goals and trials and obstacles along the way to overcome. No goals are more or less lofty than any others.

[librarius_qui]

To consider the individual is one way of evaluating success ...

However, there's some sort of "truth" (or "general situation/circumstance") that makes us be human beings, able to relate with each other, and not [being] each of us completely detached from the other.

So, I agree that success has something to do with personality, and with will. A person who doesn't know what he wants will never reach anything.

I think success has a lot to do with faith, all right. Even if faith in yourself. For those who worship a god, with pleasing his god ...

Success has something to do with the general things worshipped, as well ... But the limits of the general things everyone worship and real success is personality and personal choices, including about religion, ethics, politics, deeds, virtues, transgressions ...

Interesting matter to discuss, this one.
:thumbs_up

& Complex ... Not a shallow subject.


Libri*
:crash:

[Joreads]

Someone who is happy doing what they do.

[Dori]

(EDIT: I seem to have elaborated on what MattG already said, so if you don't care for long posts, his sentence sums the following up!)


In the homework thread one of the issues that's cropped up is the question of what is it that makes a person a 'successful' person. How do we measure the value of a person's life? Is it even possible?

So, what say you Lit-net? What makes a person a 'successful' person?

I just read Death of a Salesman, and I must say, Willy Loman was an interesting character in that he was obsessed with the American dream---that the fulfilment of this dream equalled success. He even indoctrinated his boys, especially Biff, into following this dream, even though there was the possibility that the life of the American "go-getter" wasn't right for Biff. Willy says:

"That's why I thank Almighty God you're both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. "Willy Loman is here!" That's all they have to know, and I go right through."

Evidently, success is determined by making an appearance according to Willy.

However, I don't buy this. :D I merely added it because it pertained the the subject and I found it interesting.

I believe we can only value our own lives in order to determine success. People's notion of successfulness vary. Some might find that bringing up a few good kids is success, while others, like Willy Loman, would argue that fulfilling the American dream is true success. While I consider my mom a successful person (she raised me and my twin brother!), I wouldn't consider Willy Loman to be successful. In the end, it depends on the individual's notion of success, whether or not we can judge them to be successful or unsuccessful.

[amanda_isabel]

success is living up to others' standards, realizing these are your own as well.
or at least i think so. :)

[librarius_qui]

For instance ... What's the relation between success and transgression?

[TheInsomniac]

I am success.

[Joreads]

I am success.

Glad to hear it

[jon1jt]

It started with the movie, Wall Street, then the dot.com happened. I don't think people realize the impact the dot-com era had and still has on the collective psyche, despite the calamity that occurred in its aftermath, ushering in a whole new way of looking at weath and how to get it; turning the Carnegie-Rockefeller model on its head in favor of walking and talking with all the bravado of a khaki-wearing computer geek named Bill Gates. I'm not talking about the temperate do-gooder Bill Gates, I'm talking about the one who ate Netscape software and spit it out at federal court judges who said in reply, "Sir yes sir Mr. Gates whatever you say Mr. Gates sir."

In today's marketplace it doesn't matter if you're a doctor or lawyer, whether you have a JD, MBA or Ph.D---if you have a degree and it's working for you, great, way to go---if not, then you're doing something wrong---get with it man or be a loser. The only thing that's changed in the last ten years is the speed at which one is expected to make profit, but lingering is the idea of financial independence, still perceived as being very real and attainable.

Capital-S Success is measured by how financially independent a person is. In America, on one level, it's about cars and big houses and brand clothes, but people are more skeptical nowadays about how one paid for such items and so they look at a person's disposable income---that is, what you have in your wallet besides plastic. I'm talking the kind of thing you press your nose up against and sniff hard or even lick and people will still want to be your friend.


How much cash do you have in your pocket today? ;)

[Delta40]

Good question. Trying to respond. What I do know is this:

After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
- Italian Proverb

[Zee.]

I constantly feel successful each day that I progress as a person. Grow, you know?

But I will feel successful when I complete what I set out to do. I think that's what it means to be truly successful. When you complete your intentions. If there are no intentions then you can't be successful. For there is no need to be successful :)

[Nyu001]

How successful a person is, will be up to their own standards. So this makes it subjective because not everybody will think the same and not everybody will find the same level of anything to be something successful. However there is this social status that people may think the person is successful because they gain good money, have an 'important' job, they are married, etc. But this just would be the point of view from the society to the person. Not the point of view of the own person. And a person can be successful in X things and be a failure in Y thing.

But for answer it better, a successful person is one that reached their goals and is happy with the results the person have got.

[librarius_qui]

How much cash do you have in your pocket today? ;)

You know? You just made me remember that I need to get the coins in the can, to buy a lock! ... (The lock is for the notebook that will be at work, during the week: I'll have no computer at home during week nights, which will allow me to read more, and photograph playmo, as well! :) )

I've just left a job for a business, so I don't know whether I'll be successful, but having had the courage was inspiring to me already!

An old man I know always said that he'd better regret for having done something than for, once having left the chance go, in some future, regret for not having taken that chance to change.

I even earned quite a good money, and within a few years, I'd grow in the job, but, what tha hell! I'd never be happy if I hadn't done this. Even if it goes all wrong. (And it's an awful beginning, already! ... :thumbs_up :sick: )

(So, it's ve-e-e-ery promising! :D why not?!)


Libri*

[Virgil]

It started with the movie, Wall Street, then the dot.com happened.
Come on Jon, people were considering themselves successful or lack of well before the movie Wall Street. :lol: Goodness I think Julius Caesar considered himself successful and Pompey didn't.


A person who is happy with themselves and has accomplished the things they have aspired to do in their life. Only the individual should be measuring the individual's success- we all have our own goals and trials and obstacles along the way to overcome. No goals are more or less lofty than any others.
Very well said Becca. I think others said similar, but I think this was the most elegant of all who attempted it.

[Dori]

Very well said Becca. I think others said similar, but I think this was the most elegant of all who attempted it.

Meh, elegance is mere propaganda. :p

[librarius_qui]

How successful a person is, will be up to their own standards. So this makes it subjective because not everybody will think the same and not everybody will find the same level of anything to be something successful. However there is this social status that people may think the person is successful because they gain good money, have an 'important' job, they are married, etc. But this just would be the point of view from the society to the person. Not the point of view of the own person. And a person can be successful in X things and be a failure in Y thing.

But for answer it better, a successful person is one that reached their goals and is happy with the results the person have got.

What's it you call "society"? ... :alien: (Besides being a word with Latin root, societas, -at-is, derived from socius, -i(o)-i, Latin word equivalent to "friend".)

I don't like when people mention "society", for some reason I still cannot quite understand. Maybe I have some difficulty of being a disciple of Émille D. ...




How much cash do you have in your pocket today? ;)

How much is fifty, sixty Reais in ... say ... dollar (US$)? Euro? Not much. Divide it in two (& ha'f) for US dollar, in three for Euro.

That's all I have. What I have in the bank is to cover incoming debts, and that will be all. Alas that I have (pratically) no money! Lucky me that I have a place to live. Anyway, otherwise I wouldn't have left the job I had. I kind of took the chance as "the last time I'll may do something completely insane". I have no kids. My father's just got his proper place, we pay no rent, besides taxes (water, light, building maintainance ...). Last time I could do such a thing. I intend to get married, some day, not long from now. (However, according to my calculations, not less than about between five, eight years ... At least.)

What can I say? ... I don't feel very successful, nor much wise. Nor happy, can I say. Not miserable either, all right, but there's a long way ahead. And lets suppose I won't die as I step outside, tomorrow ... Not cheerful, aye? Well, I'm not. I'd like to be, but I've always tended to reality rather than to dreaming. & I write.

[librarius_qui]

Meh, elegance is mere propaganda. :p

:lol:

Sorry, Virge, but I seem to agree with it!

[Riesa]

Waking up because you want to live the day ahead.

or in other words, virgil, :p

I meant that a succesful person wakes up full of joy for the day ahead, because they love their life.

[jon1jt]

Come on Jon, people were considering themselves successful or lack of well before the movie Wall Street. :lol: Goodness I think Julius Caesar considered himself successful and Pompey didn't.

Oh yeah, I'm sure you can go back to the days of Mesopotamia, maybe earlier, but I am referring to the commercialization of greed and that's still a relatively new phenomena.

Only the Caesars of that time were privileged to wear the flowing purple robes and laurel crowns, the rest of society lacking a Citibank and 3-minute loan to be able to buy the same for themselves. ;)

[Delta40]

I have heard that not every successful man is a good father but every good father is a successful man.

this sounds a bit like not all dogs are poodles but all poodles are dogs.

Perhaps every successful man has a poodle.....

[TheFifthElement]

I've just left a job for a business, so I don't know whether I'll be successful, but having had the courage was inspiring to me already!


Hey, good for you lib. Courageous and risky but exciting yes? Makes you want to get up in the morning like Riesa said :D

[librarius_qui]

I meant that a succesful person wakes up full of joy for the day ahead, because they love their life.

Some' (few) times I do wake up nicely. But I (usually) wake up in bad mood as well. If this were measure, I'd never be in the rank of success.

Maybe I'm not . . .



Oh yeah, I'm sure you can go back to the days of Mesopotamia, maybe earlier, but I am referring to the commercialization of greed and that's still a relatively new phenomena.



One of my favourite books is the play of Job, who happend to live, as they say, in Mesopotamia ...





Perhaps every successful man has a poodle.....

Only if success has (necessarily?) something to do with having ... (Or, perhaps with taking care of a .. life-form :alien:, but I don't think you meant the second thing, which might be a sign of a man on his way to success.)



Hey, good for you lib. Courageous and risky but exciting yes? Makes you want to get up in the morning like Riesa said :D

I don't know. Well, maybe, yes, I think so, at least a bit. Lets say that .. it was worthed.

About waking up, nope: nothing's changed. I still don't like to wake up. I'd like to sleep everyday up till 12, 13, then I'd be ... "happy". (Or successful? (...) ... Naaah!, definitely not successful!)

If I could spend time, simply (and not apply it with work that gave money), I'd write, most of the time. (And roller-skating, and photographing playmobil, in the mean times ...)

But I do have to work with something that makes money, .. and I don't intend to make of my writing the source of money. Definitely not! I'll be famous (if ever) after I die. Within about a hundred years. If this world lasts that long.

Sorry 5th ... It possibly sounds .. not inspiring. Well, this is me.

[librarius_qui]

If I'm famous (with good fame (...), for instance, because the things I wrote, did &c) about a hundred years after I die, I'll have been successful enough to my own standards!

[maraki16]

i agree with you tim! but i would also want to wander about the earth in order to find that out! so, really, you left your job? when was the last time you told me about your new job? anyway, i wish you the best of luck for the new chapter in your life. try to write it as well as you can! and i hope you will succeed. remember what i've told you, i believe in you. you seem to be a funny and clever person and fairly strong since you decided to start a business although you don't have much money. well, some would consider you an idiot, but i admire you for taking the decision to do something you really want at all costs. good luck my friend!!!

[JimmyRow]

Is success more about accomplishing things you want to accomplish, or about avoiding things you want to avoid?

[mono]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote: 'Happiness is the end of virtue, and truth knowledge of the means.'
To me, true success seems the end of ability, and a truly successful person basically has no further potential to benefit him/herself, but possibly to benefit others. A successful person owns the riches, material and/or immaterial, to the point of full contentment, and has the kind gratitude to spread those riches to others.

[subterranean]

If someone asked me, 'how are you today?', it will be very unlikely for me to response by saying, 'I feel successful!'. Fine, good, great, happy would be my common response, but not successful. Personally, I define successfull in relations towards acomplishments that matters for other people as well. Say, if I worked on a project, my project would be coined as 'successful' if it managed to reach the determined target. I might not be successful yet I can still be happy, or vice versa, because I perceive happiness as something much greater than success.

[Chava]

I might not be successful yet I can still be happy, or vice versa, because I perceive happiness as something much greater than success.

I'm going to have to agree with this.

[Chava]

In fact, I think few succeed in being happy.

[dramasnot6]

I suppose someone who genuinely and sincerely feels successful.

[librarius_qui]

In fact, I think few succeed in being happy.

Happiness varies. No person is happy always. (Except in religious*/philosophical** way.)

It's a tough world. We're subject to the hardness of life, no matter how well a person manages his life and even his feelings.

(...)--



*in relation with his god(s)
**metaphysically, or in asceticism(s)

[dramasnot6]

I think both happiness and success are as valuable as they are because of our experiences with unhappiness and failure. That is why it is so difficult to define success, because it can only ever have relative,not absolute or universal, value.

[Emil Miller]

I was staying with friends in the country and they asked me to take their dog for a walk. After a while, I passed a house that had a stable attached, and a man came out to break up the fight between his dog and the one I was walking.
We got talking about various things and he was obviously content to lean on the gate and carry on the conversation, but his wife called to him to clean the stable. He sighed and said " I don't mind doing things as long as I don't have to do them." The statement was more profound than her realised. So I would say the successful person is someone who has been able to arrange their life so that they do only what they want to do rather than what they have to.

[LostPrincess13]

I was staying with friends in the country and they asked me to take their dog for a walk. After a while, I passed a house that had a stable attached, and a man came out to break up the fight between his dog and the one I was walking.
We got talking about various things and he was obviously content to lean on the gate and carry on the conversation, but his wife called to him to clean the stable. He sighed and said " I don't mind doing things as long as I don't have to do them." The statement was more profound than her realised. So I would say the successful person is someone who has been able to arrange their life so that they do only what they want to do rather than what they have to.

I couldn't agree more.:D One is born to fulfill his personal destiny. Being successful is living life the way one wants to live it. The humble carpenter may be as successful (or even more) as the richest CEO if the carpenter considers building houses as his life's work and he's blissfully happy with it.

[librarius_qui]

He sighed and said " I don't mind doing things as long as I don't have to do them." The statement was more profound than her realised. So I would say the successful person is someone who has been able to arrange their life so that they do only what they want to do rather than what they have to.


I couldn't agree more.:D One is born to fulfill his personal destiny. Being successful is living life the way one wants to live it. The humble carpenter may be as successful (or even more) as the richest CEO if the carpenter considers building houses as his life's work and he's blissfully happy with it.

I disagree. Even a carpenter has to manage daily tasks. He has to put thought on it. If it didn't give you work, it woudn't be work ... Unless you don't think about working. To work has to do with sweating, somewhere. My opinion, though. And it has to do with religious choice.

Speaking of an ancient culture, Romans thought so as well: work, business (negotium) was the opposite of free time (otium). They also had a verb which meant free time dedicated to a discipline (studeo, -es, -ere). So, for someone to be intelectual, back then, he needed to have free time, so as to use it. Nowadays, pleople seem to (be obliged to) make everything at the same time ...

Except successful people~
which doesn't mean they don't work

[kiz_paws]

In the homework thread one of the issues that's cropped up is the question of what is it that makes a person a 'successful' person. How do we measure the value of a person's life? Is it even possible?

So, what say you Lit-net? What makes a person a 'successful' person?
I think that WE do not measure the value of a person's life -- rather, the individual themself is responsible for their own evaluation. We, as outsiders, can view a person, and based on pure speculation, evaluate that 'that person is successful because they .... ' (measured in our own terms, not necessarily the person in question).

For example, someone who can play Chopin's Ballade No. 4 from memory is someone who would be deemed successful (in my terms). But my hubby would think that that was all in a day's work -- the individual practiced to attain that end. (I believe that too, to a degree, but I have been practicing that one for a few years now, and it is nowhere close to being memorized...) **sigh**

Which leads me to my own definition of 'success'. We have gained success when we feel that by the sweat of our brow, we have attained the goals that we have set for ourselves. We can thus be content and joyful knowing that we have reached for and obtained something in life that was important to us. Of course this would vary for any individual. But to be truly happy with the result of what we have set out to do, well, that is success in my humble opinion. ;)

[librarius_qui]

I think it has to do with being happy with whatever you have to do, and pleased in not having fun all the time. Even for free time there's a limit. As well as there has to be a limit for work also! No man who works all the time can ever be happy! ... Balance is needed.