I ruminate on success as I drive slowly down Loop 202, purposely driving at 55 miles per hour in the far left lane, just to irritate the speed devil behind me. A playlist of NPR stories is on the radio, though I’m not really listening. I ask myself: Am I successful?
I ask myself this question only too often. As I understand it, my whole life is building to a moment when I will one day feel at ease, when I will wake up and be satisfied with everything I have.
But when will I get there? When will anyone get there?
Success feels fictional. It’s like a social religion made up by the corporate nabobs behind closed doors who come up with all the skullduggeries meant to control the commoners of society, something for everyone to strive and yearn for but never quite achieve. And for all the mundane worship it’s given, I don’t even really know what success is.
I used to think that as long as I was in school, I was a success, and that as long as my parents felt proud enough to brag about me to their friends, I was on the right path. But none of that ensures longevity, and now that I’m in my senior year of my undergraduate career, my current success as I see it is running out.
Playing in the background, as I turn to take the Country Club Drive exit toward my home, the speed devil still behind me, I hear the voices of NPR murmur the almighty word: “Success.”
It’s the TED Radio Hour, and this segment is about defining success. Intrigued, I turn up the volume and tune in.
The iconic voice of motivational speaker and life coach Tony Robbins fills my car. He says that you’re successful if you have powerful human emotion and passion that you can communicate to others.
This cliché annoys me, so I think about tuning out again, but then I hear another voice.
Recent MacArthur Genius Award recipient Angela Duckworth comes on the show. She begins to talk about her work studying successful people. She and her colleagues, having studied teachers, West Point cadets and students, have come to the conclusion that successful people are those who have “grit.”
What is grit? Duckworth says it is the disposition to pursue long-term goals with passion and perseverance, to “live life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
OK, so goals are the key to my success. Well, I know I have goals. The last four years, my goal has been to graduate with a four-year degree, and the next five years are devoted to establishing my career. So why don’t I feel successful?
Then comes the next voice in the segment:
Ron Gutman, author of the book “Smile,” begins his semi-comical yet scientific speech about the proven powers that the simple act of smiling contains.
Smiling makes you live longer, it makes others like you more, and it elicits the same amount of happiness as though you found $25,000 in the pocket of an old coat, he said.
Smiling makes you happier, and happiness is the key to success.
Well, I know I smile a lot. Smiling’s my favorite, and I enjoy seeing and making others smile. Still no overarching feeling of success, though.
The rest of the program continues this way, with experts giving their doctrines on what creates success. But by the end of it, all I’ve done is made a checklist in my brain of things that have supposedly made me a successful member in society.
I pull into the parking lot of my apartment complex feeling lethargic, at best.
Then it hits me.
Success feels unreal because it doesn’t exist.
Success is a fictional standard. It’s the like a photoshopped picture on the cover of PEOPLE Magazine that makes us ashamed of our bodies. We know that picture isn’t real, yet we still strive to look that way.
Success is the culmination of every lie and exaggeration that we have come to believe as truth about what our lives should amount to.
The fact is, I am not successful. No one is successful, no matter their circumstances. And that’s perfect.
Maybe I’ll spend my 20s bartending instead of securing a perfect job. Or maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and say, “No, I can’t bartend. I have to go to graduate school.”
Regardless of either decision, I won’t be a success. I’ll just be Kyle, and, in the most biased of opinions, I think that’s great.
Reach the columnist at kwrenick@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @kwrenick
