Success Sucks

Any really successful person will tell you that the secret to success is perseverance. Never give up, they say. Always hold on to your dreams, no matter what happens. They typically say this as they accept an Oscar or Hall of Fame plaque. I think it’s a load of crap.

Granted, it obviously worked for them. But they’re not a representative sample for the overall effectiveness of this approach. You’d need not only to ask them, but also ask the millions of baseball players who languished in the minors and got nowhere. And then ask all the waiters and waitresses in New York and L.A.who waited to get discovered and never did. I’m sure they had the same “never say die” philosophy, and all it got them was a lot of struggle for nothing.

“At least they tried,” you could say. But time is your most precious resource in life -- what if trying means wasting 20 years of your young life on a pig in a poke? You could have been building a stable career, starting a family, making friends, exploring other interests, immersing yourself in a community – but instead you were getting rejection after rejection at auditions.

And many of the failures probably had the talent, but there just weren’t enough job openings. Everyone wants to be a baseball player or movie star. No one dreams of being an insurance adjuster. But there is a hell of a lot more need for insurance adjusters than baseball players or movie stars. Not everyone can follow their dreams – society just can’t support all those dreams.

But I’m probably blowing in the wind here. I think a lot of this really doesn’t have to do with whatever arguments I can make for and against perseverance. Some people are born with an unholy drive, and some aren’t. Some will ride that drive to either success or failure. The rest of us will just sit out and wonder.

I’m taking myself as an example. I was always told I could do anything, be anything, because I was a smart little kid. Part of me still feels like I should, that I’m wasting my potential by just being a cubicle jockey. But the truth is I never actually had the potential, because success is more about drive than raw smarts. And I’ve always been too laid back to do much striving. I like a quiet, contemplative life. I can’t deal with much stress or many demands. I don’t think I’m lazy, exactly, but I’m definitely not a workaholic.

See, there's a general assumption in this country that anyone can (and should, goddammit) work really hard, but I don't think that's true. "Work hard" is easy for some people to say -- for those people, working really hard is a heady experience, expending their surplus of energy. For others of us, working really hard spells a miserable, empty existence, for ends of questionable worth.

I’m not even convinced that success would make me happy. Wouldn’t it just mean even more work? Maybe a little bit more money and adulation – but would all that make up for the added stress? Maybe for some, but not for me.

Probably the big reward of success would be the feeling of accomplishment, of victory. I could see that being pretty good. I guess I’m hoping that instead I’ll get my snatches of pure happiness in a less predictable way. See, I think we’re all searching for moments of pure happiness. You could probably reach those by setting a big goal and then making it. But it’s not like those moments would last forever, because afterwards you just have even more work maintainting that spot.

My approach is to live a quiet life, do what you need to do, surround yourself with friends and family, and let those moments of pure happiness come on their own. I think you get struck with them now and again when you lead a satisfying, balanced life.

It gets back to that other old saw: “Find one thing that you really love and do it for the rest of your life.” I always hated that singular approach. It’s a recipe for a nervous breakdown. I think you have to find lots of things you love and pursue them in a gradual, mellow way. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for the possibility that that one special thing will collapse or not end up being fulfilling. Then you’ve blown your whole life in a dead end. It’s like investing – you got to diversify.

Well, I think I’ve done enough convincing of myself for a while.