Everyone loves the idea of being successful. What is one thing that your want to be successful at? What’s the first thing you need to do to become successful?
My first thought is “what does it mean to be successful?” I’m curious how my students will respond to this prompt. A lot of times when your life is about doing without your measure of success might be very superficial or survival oriented. As a kid, my siblings and I did not have all of the toys that our friends seemed to have, but every Sunday after church we each got 25-cents to spend on whatever candy we wanted. Mom could do the whole week’s grocery shopping in the time we took staring at the candy shelf trying to decide what precious treat to take home. Success was not only about getting something tasty but something that would last longer than a couple minutes. To my 10-year-old self, success was about making Sunday’s candy last all day. I have a feeling that I still have notions of “the most bang for the buck” in my adult thinking.
But “success” as something you achieve, that wasn’t really part of my childhood vocabulary, and I imagine anyone living in survival mode would probably feel the same. Success, as it was portrayed in the popular media, was something for those who had some say in how their life went. It wasn’t really something that a working-stiff could ponder beyond surviving to the next pay check. I didn’t mean to be bleak, but even growing up in the 1960s and 70s, when it was popular to say “you can grow up to be anything you want to be” there were some definite ceilings if you were of a particular color, gender or neighborhood. But like my parents before me, I snuck out of those limitations (via college) and was rewarded for my efforts far beyond my working class roots. But I still carry with me some of those paycheck-to-paycheck mindsets and it hasn’t served me as well as one would hope.
Long term planning is a bit of a joke when one has grown up and adopted a paycheck-to-paycheck mindset. My mom aways said that no matter what I chose I always managed to land on my feet, which is almost to say that I’ve been “successful” despite my choices. Ack. I guess the idea that I even had a choice was something that stepped beyond my working class roots.
When I taught a masters course at Full Sail University I used the book “The Art of Possibility” as part of my course. I got a chance to meet the author, Benjamin Zander, who was the conductor of the Boston Symphony. He was a very “power of positive” thinking kind of guy, who made the difficult choice to go from playing in the orchestra to conducting the orchestra when physical ailments cropped up, but probably not someone who grew up with a paycheck-to-paycheck mindset. I did have students at Full Sail who, even as they were working towards an expensive masters degree in education, felt pinned down by their responsibilities and struggled with the idea that they had a choice in their lives. They were living a paycheck-to-paycheck existence where they could not risk anything that might threaten their current job.
Five paragraphs in and I still haven’t answered the prompt. So, at my very different from my students’ stage in life, Success is measured based on where my life has taken me versus my potential. Right there I’m posing the equation in a way that promotes motivation and further endeavor. Had I posed the equation of where my life has taken me versus my family background that might spin more in the direction of “where did he go considering what he started with.” But remember I also grew up in the era where we were expected to realize our dreams. Ugh. For quite some time I’ve been motivated to continue the work (whatever THAT might be) in view of the gifts/potential I’ve been given, feeling like I’m nowhere near what I could possibly achieve. Even in the last of 28-years teaching, I still think about it in terms of what might be possible.
One last complicating factor, that might be evident by the wide-spectrum of subjects I’ve written about in this blog, is that I have a lot of strong interests and experiences. And that can get in the way of achieving “success.” Here’s a video that perfectly describes my problem with “success.” Enjoy. BTW, how do you deal with the success equation?
