What is Success? And What Isn’t It?
What is success? Isn’t that subjective? Ask ten people and you’re likely to get at least seven different answers.
One of my nephews is the epitome of what i consider a success; He has a wonderful wife, three gorgeous kids, his house is almost paid off, and, most important of all, he’s home for dinner every night. You can’t ask for much more than that.
What makes him a success? Who knows? But i can tell you that it wasn’t a college degree because he doesn’t have one. But that’s not all he doesn’t have. He doesn’t have any student loans to worry about paying back either.
What is Success? It *Does Not *Mean Making a Lot of Money
No matter what your definition of success is, it is probably not simply the achievement of monetary wealth. At least I hope not. One of the definitions according to Merriam-Webster is:
favorable or desired outcome
When you dissect that meaning, you’ll see that that particular definition of success depends greatly on what the desired outcome is. After all, when you think about it, what good is being filthy rich if you’re not happy? What good is building the biggest company in the world if you can’t enjoy it? Success should mean something similar to most people—a balance of the important things in life—in other words, happiness.
There is a reason why smiles and laughter are universal. Because they indicate a happy state of mind. I know that the world is in a sad state of affairs, but remember, we are the ones who construct the fences and put up the walls. If it were up to nature, there would be no boundaries.
So I ask again—What Is Success?
My wife and I run an animal sanctuary and we have about fifty animals of all types and all colors; in fact, of numerous species. And yet, they all get along. Don’t get me wrong, there is an occasional scuffle, but it’s just that—a scuffle, and it is settled quickly, then things go back to normal.
I’d love to see that many people of differing races and religions live together in a small area and get along as well.
Is the Sanctuary a Success?
Good question. I’d like to think that it is. We’ve had it for twenty-four years and have never lost a single animal to fighting or any other such behavior. We’ve never even had to call a vet due to that. And we have a wide assortment—pigs, dogs, a horse, cats, and a crazy wild boar who weighs about four hundred fifty pounds. You can see him below. This is a picture of him when he was only about two years old; now, he’s five and he has huge tusks.
But My Neighbors Are Wildly Successful
Really? Are you sure about that? What are you using to make that judgment? Is it the same yardstick that they used to measure their own success? Are you sure they asked themselves the age-old question, what is success.
While writing my book, Uneducated, I interviewed many people, who, on the surface, seemed successful. But it was enlightening to see how many of them did not look at it that way, despite having accumulated a significant amount of wealth—which most people use as the yardstick.
When asked why they did not consider themselves as successes, they said, because they hadn’t achieved what they wanted. Most mentioned a stable, happy life. Some wished for even more wealth. And others still desired other non-material achievements. But almost all of them were not where they thought they would be when they began their journey.
Comparisons Are Never Good
I’m going to do something now that I have always told my wife and kids never to do—compare your life situation with someone else’s. I have told them that because even though things may look wonderful on the outside, you never know what’s behind door number three, so to speak. But in this case, I do know, so I’ll do the comparison.
Since many people can only make comparisons by analyzing charts, we’ll use the following table to find out ‘what is success’.
| Person | Original Goal | What achieved by age 35 | New Goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nephew | Nice family, with at least 3 kids | Wonderful family, with 3 kids | At least one more kid |
| Person X | Wealth of $10 million minimum | $5 million | Abandoned goals due to personal cost |
| Person Y | Build own company with personal net worth of at least $15 million | Built own company, net worth exceeds $25 million | Find mate who will stick by me. Repair relationship with kids. |
You might think I selected the most bleak prospects, but I didn’t. Some were far worse. Most were disappointed by the impact of attempting to be their original conceived version of success had on family life. Seven of the ten people I spoke with were either divorced or thinking of it, and none of them (when pressed) felt that they had a good relationship with their kids.
Compare that with my nephew, who comes home every night to his wife (a wonderful woman) and his three kids (magnificent, happy kids). He eats dinner with them seven days a week, builds things in the back yard with them, plays with them, and drives them over twice a week to visit their grandmother. I don’t know if I could make up a story as good as that. I wouldn’t put it in one of my books because people wouldn’t believe me.
By the way, he has two almost-new cars, three iPads, three iPhones, and the family goes out to eat once a week. And their 3,000 square foot house is almost paid for. And he’s not alone. I dedicated my book to my nephew and my youngest son. I’ll be doing a post about him in the near future. The next time someone asks, what is success, don’t be so quick to answer.
At dinner with the kids
Giacomo
Giacomo (Jim) Giammatteo
Website: Giacomo Giammatteo
eMail: gg@giacomog.com
Fiction Books: (Mystery and Fantasy)
Non-fiction (No Mistakes Publishing) (Publishing, Writing, Grammar, other non-fiction)
Non-fiction (No Mistakes Resumes) (Career related, as in résumés and interviews)
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I agree with your definition of success Jim. I stumbled upon your opinions, site, and life story, and books by “googling” ISBN information. I found your article on that interesting due to all the details offered which led me to want to know more about you as an author. It appears that you write day and night like I do about all things that interest you and that you have delved into and want to share that information with others. You obviously enjoy helping and serving others as I do as well. At nearly 74, I am nearing the end of my mortal life so have been interested in writing down all that I have learned in a variety of ways which I mostly started doing for the sake of my adult children and grandchildren and for the youth of a crumbling American society because I wish to give hope to them and a message of how to survive this life and make the most of it. My writing over these many last few decades I feel now should be published. I self-published locally after a bad experience with “Westbow” where I luckily only lost $500 by pulling out when I did but managed to get some valuable information on publishing and layout of books, so it was not a total loss. I read your article on ISBNs thoroughly and am about to read it again. I am not sure I have figured out the best course to take as yet even though your information was excellent. I kind of was lost toward the very end of the article possibly due to some lack on my part not necessarily yours. self-publ. my first book on Christmas in an Epic Poem style and did so locally using my own printer and an area printer with a small spiral binding in 8 1/2″ by 11″ and 28 # paper I bought from my local newspaper’s office. I bought my copyright for $65 online registering it Dec. 13, 2019, and by the time all was done it was pretty much in print only a day or two before Christmas; I did an area radio show interview, and our local newspaper interviewed me but those came about too late in first week of January (talk about “anti-climactic”). I have a signing set up for the first Friday after Thanksgiving here at my local bookstore in the middle of nowhere Montana with a population of about 7,000 or so but we will grow to 10,000 very soon with new missiles about to be installed and new silos needing to be built. I then publ. and recently copyrighted a second work, a book for children and adults about helping kids through the difficult experience of divorce using a one-hour scene of a grandmother comforting her upset precocious daughter. One is brought into an emotionally intimate setting meant to bring comfort to a child and to her grandmother who is going through a divorce. I have had great reviews locally by a wonderful local therapist who has used both books for healing families coming to him for counseling; those people claim their relationships have been healed as a result by use of these two books. If I had only helped one person with each book, I would say those books were a success. I was so happy to hear these reports. I do have both books for sale locally at our wonderful bookstore. I am thinking going with Amazon sounds sensible for me because most everyone I know shops there. I am willing to also try the venue of kindle eBooks so have purchased one of your books on that to read on my iPad. I am now writing a book and have 58 chapters so that won’t work and I’m not even finished so I am in the process of chopping that up and using some chapters for a novel, another more detailed version for a history book for those who grew up where I did in western Mass. and yet another the longest version to be used as a memoir for my progeny should they ever desire to know more details about my own life with the understanding that some of it is fictional and most of it was autofiction in the guise of fiction. Yes, I am in a mess right now for sure and I think you would agree. So, I’ve made several copies using the computer subject line for changes to keep track of which version is for which audience. I am now sticking with the adolescent audience for the novel so want to keep it fresh and light and moving along quickly to hold their attention. It is a novel about coming of age and how making the right choices in life early on can make such a huge difference in our futures. I want to give hope to those I write for. Another goal I have is to preserve in print and share knowledge I have compiled during my years of research for others to then use for a springboard to go even further into research. Yes, I would love to have credit for what I have accomplished over the last 46 years of research as well of course but to preserve it first and foremost is most important to me because one never knows how much time they have left in this life. I also am trying to print out and publish a coffee table book with lots of pictures on my family history which contains some fascinating information, some murder mystery details due to one famous public figure in my ancestral line and with a few famous classical authors and presidents fam history charts and how they are related to my interesting political figure ancestors with some little known facts that will intrigue historians and family history buffs and mystery writers alike. I think the interest might go wide on that book but publishing it with quality would make all the difference. Later I want to pretty up my two vol. U.S. History Timeline containing over 2,000 vignettes i wrote over the last few winters which would be useful to quite a wide audience. I noted that you have your own publ. co. now and “hats off to you”; that is an amazing feat to have accomplished and I would not personally try it myself, so I am doubly impressed with what you have done. I would like to better understand what you can offer me as a new author as a publishing co. (Inferno Publ.) and also what path you might recommend I choose for obtaining an ISBN on my first two publ. works I shared with you above and also for future publications now that you know the position I am in personally, if you have a moment to share some wisdom with me please; I would be so grateful to you Jim. I love how you and your wife are straddling both worlds with writing and with raising animals for your personally enjoyment and for their welfare as well. It is essential for my husband and I to do the same and we love the time we are able to spend with our neighborhood rabbits that once were domesticated and let go by a neighbor leaving them to propagate here in the wilds of our area suburbs just over the town line here in Lewistown, MT; we both loved camping and hiking when younger and my husband has been around horses his whole life but now we do not have the means or space to keep them here which we have had to accept as part of getting older. If you care to take a few moments of your time to answer my few questions, I would be very pleased to hear from you Jim. Best to you and your wife and family. Family is the most important gift any of us have as you well know. Blessings, Elizabeth (Lansing) Montgomery