Tag: Success

Second Best

Posted on by jabittan
Diana Wakowski is a poet who authored a letter for James Harmon to include in his book, Take My Advice, a combination of letters from creative people.  In Wakowski’s letter the poet writes, “Try to balance the material world and  the idealistic one, so that your standards always remain high but you learn to gracefully accept and be second best.” This quote is difficult to understand when you look at it from a surface level, and it seems to run against the ideas and visions of success that are programmed into us from the time we enter elementary school.  I think that unpacking this quote, examining our motivation, and defining success are at the heart of Wakowski’s vision.

 

Throughout school we are constantly competing against our peers and being rewarded by congratulatory stickers and medals.  Whether it is academics or athletics the competition aspect of life is built in from a young age.  Success in both areas for many people is driven by the material rewards and social benefits that accompany outstanding accomplishments.  In sports, the desire for shiny medals or trophies may be the motivation for some to spend hours practicing, while in academics, certificates and self satisfaction from achieving the highest possible grade can be the drive.

 

What Wakowski is saying in her quote is that the outward benefits of success that many so strongly desire need to be combined with an understanding of the world we live in.  Striving to achieve a level of success in order to call oneself the best can be detrimental to not just ourselves but those around us.  When we begin to see this, it is important that we consider our motivations.  Working hard is not a bad thing, but pushing ourselves to the point where our health is in question and the relationships around us become strained is dangerous.  If our motivations are based purely on outside recognition and material gains, then the sacrifices we make to our health and relationships will leave us in a place we never wanted to reach.  In addition, striving towards material goals and desires often leaves us working towards goals and lifestyles set by other people or companies. These types of goals are not aligned with our true desires or our inner personalities.

 

In her quote, I do not believe that Wakowski is suggesting that we leave all material desires and outside motivations behind us, but rather she is asking that we become aware of those desires so that we can align them with our true selves.   We cannot do this if we have not spent time trying to understand what our motivation is, and where our desires come from.  Having high standards and expectations is a good thing in our lives, but constantly driving to be the very best may take away from parts of our lives that could be more meaningful than the boost to our wallet or social image.  Settling for second best in this view is not settling for good enough, but rather striving to be excellent at what you do, but not to a point where you are unable to enjoy the success that accompanies the hard work.  If you reframe your goals and desires then your success become more aligned with who you truly are and what you truly enjoy so that you can have better motivation to pursue excellence.

Don’t Be Afraid

Posted on by jabittan
I have thought a lot about fear recently, and revisiting the sections I highlighted when I read James Harmon’s book, Take My Advice, has helped me approach fear from multiple perspectives.  In Harmon’s book the photographer Horst writes, “Don’t be afraid. One learns through pain, and suffering.  Patience helps!” His quote explains his thoughts on the difficult and painful parts of life that we all strive to avoid.
What I have come to notice with failure is that I am not afraid of the act of failing at something, but I am afraid of the consequences that follow failure.  I think this is an important distinction to make.  I am not afraid of what I can control with a given situation and its result, but I am afraid of the consequences that will follow in the form of other people’s reactions to my failure.  On a second and deeper level, I am for some reason, afraid of hard work. Whenever I get a great idea in my head I can go crazy with what I want to do and how fun it would be to actualize my idea, but then the realization of how much work it will take often paralyzes me.  I have no problem working hard, I graduated Cum Laude, but the idea of additional work in an already busy life becomes overwhelming.
I think that Horst would advocate for me to have patience and plan my goals out over a long time so that the work becomes less daunting.  The problem I have with this idea is the fear of working hard with something, only to find out halfway or two thirds of the way to my goal, that I want something else.  I don’t want my hard work to accidentally steer me away from what I want and into something I had not intended.  Patience and a long term goal in this sense can be something to fear itself.
Richard Wiseman in his book, 59 Seconds: Think a Little Change a Lot, does offer a solution to this dilemma.  Wiseman reviewed popular self-help and advice books to see if any of their suggestions had real scientific backing.  What he found in conquering fear and chasing goals is that those who journal are more likely to reach their long term goals.  He would combine Horst’s idea of patience with a level of self-awareness. Wiseman’s advice is to be honest about what you want and why, and then examine what you could to do get where you want to go. Along the way everyone will face obstacles, and Wiseman says that spending time journaling about how you will overcome those obstacles will help you understand the difficult parts and plan ahead. This way, when you do hit periods of turbulence and hard work, you don’t need to be afraid. Instead of fear of hard work, I can journal to understand what kinds of hard work I can expect and how I will solve problems to mitigate the hard work.  This focus can give me more confidence and reduce the fear of consequences and the fear of hard work.

Prescribed Happiness

Posted on by jabittan
In a letter of advice for James Harmon’s book, Take My Advice, Arthur Nersesian writes about the ideas our society has for happiness and success.  He argues that most people try to fit in to pre-defined ideas of success, and that we strive for an image of happiness set by things that influence us. Nersesian writes, “I think a lot of people feel unhappy because they don’t fit into prescribed notions of happiness.”
In Nersesian’s quote I see the importance of looking for our own path, and finding our true desires rather than following the ideas that society prescribes to us.  I am currently reading a book written by Colin Wright in which he explains that we have many things that influence us such as our parents, the media we consume, advertisements, and people around us.  What Wright argues, and I think Nersesian would agree with, is that these influences shape our desires and world views to fit what others want in our lives, as opposed to what we want in our lives.
Nersesian in his letter explains that we should not try to judge other people’s success by how well they fit into these prescribed notions of happiness or success. Advertisements and television shows would paint a picture of success that equals lots of money, good looks, and a sports car. At the same time, the images of happiness that bombard us through media and social media paints a picture of exciting trips, unique experiences, and a fully checked off bucket-list.  If we spend all our effort trying to reach these ideas of success and happiness then we are forgetting to ask ourselves what we actually want.  By turning inward and understanding what is important to us and why, we can begin to journey towards our own form of happiness without the pressure to be happy in the way that society envisions for us.

Advantages From Birth

Posted on by jabittan
When I was at the University of Nevada for my undergrad, I spent a semester studying Education. From a class titled Teaching Multicultural Diversity I learned just how important family support and social economic status can be for an individuals health, development, and academic success.  The statistics were hard to accept and fully believe, especially as an insecure college student who wanted to believe that all of the good things I did came as a result of my own hard work and not the fortune of others.  I was reminded of everything I learned in that class when  I came across the following quote from George Saunders in a letter he wrote to James Harmon for Harmon’s book, Take My Advice, “A fortunate birth, in other words, is a shock absorber”.
Saunders in his letter asks the reader to participate in a thought experiment.  He writes about two babies born at exactly the same time, but to very different families; one born to a wealthy and supportive family and the other born to a broken family of drug addicts. He asks us to imagine this scenario acted out a million times, and then asks us to imagine the future for all of the babies born to the “in-tact families” relative to the future of the babies born into broken homes.  What he explains is that both sets of babies will face many of the same challenges, but that the babies born to the supportive families will always have a level of support and comfort to help them bounce back, learn quicker, and receive better care than the other babies.  His ultimate point is that a fortunate birth can set up a life filled with advantages, and that no baby ever does anything to deserve a fortunate or unfortunate birth.
What I learned in my education class supported Saunders’ thought experiment. The biggest shock for me was this, the vocabulary for children entering first grade can vary from 10,000 words to 1,000 words.  What creates this 9,000 word gap has nothing to do with a child’s intelligence or aptitude, but more often than not the single deciding factor between a high and low vocabulary is a home filled with books.  Children with parents who read to them and send them to kindergarten will be closer to the 10,000 word vocabulary, while children whose parents do not buy them books and instead leave  them with  the television enter school with a vocabulary closer to 1,000 words.  If you read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, he introduces the idea that birth plays an important factor in future athletic, academic, and even musical success.  A child who enters school with a 10,000 word vocabulary will receive more praise for their good reading skills, and as a result will continue to challenge themselves with reading and learning. Meanwhile, the child who entered school with 1,000 words will struggle and not receive additional attention for their strong academic skills, which in the end will leave them discouraged. This is the idea behind early childhood development for Gladwell. A lucky birth (good timing allowing a young athlete to be more developed at age 5, or being born into a home filled with books) can allow a child to receive not just more support from their family, but from society.
When we look at others who maybe are not as successful as us, I think it is worth remembering this idea.  We did not all have the same supportive parents and backgrounds. Sometimes the help we receive from family and our social economic surroundings allows us to overcome obstacles that others cannot. While it is difficult to accept and truly understand this, it will help us connect with more people and make a positive impact on the planet.

Unfolding Outcomes

Posted on by jabittan
In her book Packing Light, Vesterfelt also writes, “Most of life is unfolding on the road in front of us. The “outcome” can change as fast as the scenery.”  This quote is important for me because it represents a lot of the thoughts that I have about my future. I am unsure of what I really want in life, and often have trouble with answering questions along the lines of where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years, or any length of time. In the past I know that I was locked in to an image of what success was, and I knew the outcomes I wanted: a big house, a classic muscle car, lots of medals and awards from running races.  Over time, I have had to try to identify what skills I have and what opportunities present themselves to me, matching the skills I have. With this process I have had to look at what goals or images of success I had in my mind (the outcomes) and get to the base of those goals and ideas of success to try and understand where they came from.
With life constantly changing, and new opportunities presenting themselves to me I have learned to let go of the outcomes, and focus instead on trying to be the best version of myself that I can be. It is an incredibly stressful process because I am constantly looking for security, but the things that seem to be “secure” to me don’t seem to be interesting or rewarding. Learning that the outcomes can change, and allowing the outcome that I desire to shift has allowed me to have a more dynamic approach to my every day life. I do not feel so locked in to a particular goal or vision of success, and allowing those goals to change reduces the stress I feel, and also seems to provide me with more time to allow myself to reach a state where I feel successful with the person I have become.

Success & Judgement

Posted on by jabittan
The next quote from Allison Vesterfelt in her book Packing Light is one that has proven to be hugely important for me recently.  She wrote, “We can’t measure the value of our decisions based on outcomes.” This simple idea was true for Allison before she took her 50 state road trip, and over the course of her journey it held up.  In my life this idea connects back to our American image of success, and the importance of money in determining success.  Listening to a recent podcast, I can’t remember which podcast or who may have been the guest, the guest on the show said that we tend to make judgements about people and gage how successful of a person they are based on their income. He said that we do this not because it is the best metric of success, but because it is the easiest. Money he said is not always the right way to measure success, and wealth accumulation is not the best way to judge our value.
For Vesterfelt the quote represented the idea that we do not always have to make decisions on what actions we will take with an end goal in mind. For instance with this blog, I don’t have to worry about having followers and achieving any outcome, it is simply a place for me to reflect on what I have read, and process my thoughts as I revisit and write them.  In my personal running, each run does not have to have a desired calorie burn level, and the end goal of running consistently does not have to be winning races. If I approach running as each day getting the opportunity to do something that feels good and that I enjoy doing, then in the end I will be more successful. Somehow this idea is easier to apply to the non-monetized aspects of our lives. I struggle daily with understanding the value of individuals, and seeing people as successful, even when their bank account, car, house, and clothes do not align with the American standard of wealth and success.