How do we determine the value of success? The question seems obvious when one first thinks about it: when one achieves their goals. But when one defines a successful person, too often they simply mean that they are financially successful.
The logic of this definition lies in the idea that when one is successful in life, they have obtained a job that pays well and that they have been successful in. But that is assuming that someone’s goals are to find a job that pays well. And that that job is something they can advance in to that point. It doesn’t account for a number of other things, such as illness or accidents that can land a person in huge debt, no matter how successful they were at work.
Here is the problem, then. If our assumption of success or failure focuses first on financial “success,” we are judging a person’s merit by the amount in their bank account. However, if their goals weren’t focused on financial gain, then we’ve judged their “success” wrongly. We need to always take into account what goals they were trying to achieve. For example, if a moderately wealthy person’s goal was to spend all of their money to try to renovate a building and they did so, could we honestly say that they didn’t succeed?
But that’s not enough, you say. Why were they spending all of their money on that building? What was the point of renovation? Say it was to turn it into a store. If they do turn it into a store and the store does well, then, yes, they’ve succeeded. But if the renovations are incomplete due to lack of funds? Most people would call that a failure.
However, though it is a failure in the sense that they didn’t create a store, there are minor successes to be found if you look. If the renovator’s reason for their actions is because the wanted to stimulate the local economy, then they may have spent that money on local contractors. That constitutes a success. If they wanted to keep the older buildings in the town from becoming out of date, then they’ve at least brought one a lot closer to that goal. Success.
The point is, our culture only really focuses on profits and costs, even when thinking about success and failure. But the old adage about learning from failure should come with a caveat: Is it really failure, or is it simply a subtle form of success?
