Are success and happiness related?
Being a successful person is not only about having the recognition, but also the means to excel, and this was evident during the pandemic.
Fulfilling our dreams is an essential ingredient of our happiness, the formula is repeated to us over and over again in every movie we see, in every novel we read; the cannon of our times tells us this, and two of the most successful men on planet Earth have just demonstrated it to us:
Richard Branson's flight into space, without considering R&D, cost $600 million. Who has already paid for a ticket: Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt. ($250,000 per ticket) (4 minutes in outer space).
The cost of Jeff Bezos’ flight, including R&D, was $5.5 billion. (And Elon Musk is coming in 2023.) And all to “fulfill my dream” (Bezos dixit).
Those who fulfill their dreams are “successful” people and so they are happy, “fulfilling” their dreams.
At the Olympic Games, we see supermen and superwomen once again fulfill their dreams by carrying out years of routines and sacrifices to turn plans into reality, and success into happiness. It seems that the much-discussed cases of Naomi Osaka (tennis), Simone Biles (gymnastics) and Sha'Carri Richardson (athletics) are exceptions that confirm the rule: the vast majority of athletes are successful and achieve equally high levels of happiness, and if we asked them if they would take the path of sacrifice again to reach the pinnacle of success, the vast majority would do it again.
So, the question remains: do we have to be successful to be happy? Or, asking the question the other way around, if I'm not successful, can't I be happy? Perhaps, to delve deeper into the question, it would be worthwhile to delve into what we should understand by success, because taking as an example what I commented a few lines ago, recently by these same athletes (Simone Biles), if by success we are going to understand pleasing the gaze of the other, the demands of the other, the judgment of the other, then it is clear that success is exactly the opposite of happiness, you cannot be happy for others, you can only be happy for yourself, with others, but for yourself.
What definitions of success, or how to understand success, are in line with happiness?
Some definitions of success:
“Engagement”, with the level of involvement with which we do things.
“Passionate about what you do” (Richard Branson).
If success is measured by the values one has, and one lives by those values (Tony Hsieh, was CEO of Zappos).
If success is related to enjoyment, to desire, to the pleasure with which one does what one does.
Thomas Alva Edison said: “Success is 1% inspiration and 99 perspiration.”
If success has to do with the purpose one has in life, not with goals, not with achievements along the way, but with the great purpose one has. In my case my purpose is to Make money in Heaven while working and living happily. Stephen Covey, the famous author of the classic book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”: “If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.”
If success is a result of happiness and not the other way around, happiness as a result of success.
Many studies conducted by two of the most important scholars of happiness, Tal Ben Shahar and Sonya Luybormisky, have shown very clearly that success does not always lead to happiness, instead, happy people are always successful, considering the above definitions: happy people are involved and committed to what they do (engagement), are guided by their values, enjoy what they do, and are clear about their purpose in life.
By way of conclusion to this topic:
In a quote taken from the Internet (and I clarify this because I do not trust Internet quotes. In my interventions, I almost always quote from books and articles), the great Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, Anastasia) said “Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get”.
(Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get).
There seems to be nothing wrong with pursuing success as long as you always keep in mind that it should not be an end in itself and that doing it for the recognition of others is a recipe for failure. It is better to keep working on the different aspects of well-being and happiness, and success will come as a bonus. Don't work hard, work happily.
Don't work harder, work happier.
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DrRoch
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