How do you measure success in life?

[Animal]

grumbledoak said:

(It's interesting googling the origin of that phrase. Spoken by Conan in the film, obviously, but it isn't really one of his).

Genghis Khan

[anonymous-user]

Depends how you approach "success".

A lot of responses above define it in terms that I'd say are subjective, and in so doing, basically define it (to my mind) in the same terms as personal contentment.

Objective success is (IMO) nothing to do with subjective success. Eg Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Bill Gates are all objectively successful. Whether they are contented - or subjectively successful - I have no idea. But even if they are clinically depressed, I'd say they are still objectively highly successful.

Objective success can be measured by its opposite: the incidence of failure. Simply put, the later in life you encounter serious failure, the more successful you are. For some, failure comes at school. For others, it comes close to the end of an otherwise glittering career (eg just missing out on the appointment to be CEO of Megacorp). For some, it never comes at all. (Of course it is possible that a person might overcome early serious failure(s) and still end up objectively highly successful, but the basic idea is clear enough).

Neither objective success nor subjective success are better than the other, but they are not the same thing and are not measured by the same means.

[shielsy]

In the alleged words of Fred Jung...

Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on.

[Jonsv8]

ewenm said:

IMO there's a couple of aspects to this. You need to get the basics sorted - food, shelter, income. Once those are above a minimum acceptable standard (which is different for each individual), then my measures of success changes to more esoteric factors - happiness, contentment, family.

Ever read maslows hierarchy of needs?

Or alderfers ERG theory?

I'm not knocking, quite the opposite, these things have been studied and form fairly classical models.

[WildCards]

RobinOakapple said:

...
Here's another aspect to the question, what about if you are really successful for thirty-five years, then it all turns to st for five years, is that better than having an average life for forty years? IOW, is it where you end up that matters, or how well you do getting there?

I think the journey is more important than the final destination.

[ewenm]

Jonsv8 said:

Ever read maslows hierarchy of needs?

Or alderfers ERG theory?

I'm not knocking, quite the opposite, these things have been studied and form fairly classical models.

Maslow is rather simple; useful as a starting point. It's very appealing for that reason but needs expansion (which is then difficult to add into the pretty diagram ). Edit: for example, the layers in the triangle are far more blurred than the strict hierarchy would suggest IMO. More of a wide, thin, mixed base with a set of post-sufficient peaks on top perhaps. The pizza theory of needs

Alderfers ERG I've not looked at - will have a look when I get a chance.

Edited by ewenm on Wednesday 22 April 07:35

[p1stonhead]

Jonsv8 said:

ewenm said:

IMO there's a couple of aspects to this. You need to get the basics sorted - food, shelter, income. Once those are above a minimum acceptable standard (which is different for each individual), then my measures of success changes to more esoteric factors - happiness, contentment, family.

Ever read maslows hierarchy of needs?

This one is relevent to a lot of people these days;

[ewenm]

p1stonhead said:

This one is relevent to a lot of people these days;

I've seen another one with a "Coffee" layer at the bottom too

[Jonsv8]

ewenm said:

p1stonhead said:

This one is relevent to a lot of people these days;

I've seen another one with a "Coffee" layer at the bottom too

Like them both and so true!

ERG is Existance Relatedness and Growth - its a different spin on the same thing really. If you want to read something a little different its Herzberg. It effectively explains why premiership footballers can still be lazy bds but if they think someone is getting £5 a week more they complain like mad.