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What is success?

G.K Chesterton in his essay “The Fallacy of Success” argues that the books written on success and tend to advise people on how to succeed in life are a waste of time and money for the readers because they don’t guide on how to succeed in one’s work, rather try to change people in their perceptions and professions. Chesterton believes that there is no such thing as “success” or to put it differently, everything is successful in its own way. He argues that if one has to succeed, he/she has to either work very hard or to cheat. So books should be about how to work hard or how to cheat (find ways to accomplish), but not about how to succeed. These books give examples of some successful people without realizing that not all are given the same opportunities as them. Nor do all people wish to succeed like them. The concept of success is different for different people. These books merely focus on worldly success and suggest readers be like the few richest people by copying their actions and course. And there is little they know about how these rich people worked and made huge amounts of money. The suggestions in these books and articles make people skeptical of being on their way to success but not successful.

In his writing “The Elements of Success”, Mike Kubic cites the research of Chua and Rubenfeld who found out that different racial groups like the Asian-Americans, the Nigerians and the Mormons and state that they are more successful than their white American peers in academics and are doing well in professionally as well. Their success is a combination of three factors, their superiority complex, insecurities, and grit. These groups, like the Asian-Americans, perform better than the Americans because they have low self-esteem and need to prove themselves through hard work. They conclude that one needs self-discipline and determination to overcome the hurdles and succeed in life.

There have been many researches that emphasize on academic and professional success and factors contributing to it. Many researches reveal that success is an outcome of a combination of intelligence, hard work and perseverance. The main theme is that people should be given opportunities that they can cash. Not all people are made to work a 9-5 job and succeed at it. The ability to think out of the box and create to solve problems has gained traction of many people. The trend of entrepreneurship is increasing and enabling people to create opportunities that suit them.

As far as both these essays are concerned, I find both of them persuasive and meaningful in their own ways. The former discusses the inability of the literature on success to incorporate different perspectives and that is true in most cases as generally, people measure success in a merely monetary term which I think is not a good approach. Our focus should be on the quality of life including happiness, job satisfaction, peace of mind and a healthy lifestyle. The rat race we are in has resulted in more depression and anxiety than success. The latter is a good read as it has cited empirical evidence of successful groups and the reasons behind their success and suggested that success can be earned through hard work and motivation which I think is a more practical approach. The former essay is a good read as it leads to look at things differently than the general prevalent ideas and hints at accepting one’s differences and embrace their own ideas of success.

Works Cited

Baron, Robert A., et al. “Exporting Social Psychology: Effects of Attractiveness on Perceptions of Entrepreneurs, Their Ideas for New Products, and Their Financial Success1.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, vol. 36, no. 2, 2006, pp. 467–92. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00015.x.

Strenze, Tarmo. “Intelligence and Socioeconomic Success: A Meta-Analytic Review of Longitudinal Research.” Intelligence, vol. 35, no. 5, Sept. 2007, pp. 401–26. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.intell.2006.09.004.

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determines Success in Life. p. 1.