On success
In the opening seminar of the required course on Scholarship in Education: Research Methods, we were asked to read through JK Rowling's commencement address to Harvard graduates and contemplate the following questions: What is your definition of success? In your view, is success always valuable?
Here are my responses:
In my view, success as is commonly understood and accepted, of all forms is an external measurement of an individual. It is a measurement of the individual as a person who can and must achieve. The individual’s sense of self; defined as who they are, what they do and what they achieve is being measured in terms of the values that define success. A success-seeking individual struggles to develop and strengthen the sense of self so it might measure positively on the success barometer. The process of strengthening the sense of self is at its very core an exercise in building up the ego (or the self as I like to call it). In order to measure up, the self needs to be special and unique, different and better than the self of other individuals. This need to be special makes the self of every individual separate from that of every other. While no human being wants to be separate and isolated from other beings, an inevitable consequence of seeking success is that one is deeply separated from other human beings and creatures. This sense of separation runs so deep that it becomes the basis that drives all human action. It makes a person compete with other people and other creatures. It is the cause of wars, overuse and hoarding of natural resources and the reason why humans walk the earth defending themselves against it, not just when attacked but in every breathing moment.
Thus, in my view the drive for success is one of the reasons why human beings experience the levels of conflict and pain in their lives that they do. While the pain and conflict caused by success is scary enough, what is even more scary is that society at large, across the globe not only endorses the drive for success, but that it encourages and even demands that all beings worthy of respect drive for success. So, society at large endorses, supports and pushes for all of to experience isolation and be in conflict. Scary!
I recognize that I am making some big claims by stating this view. Rowling’s address provided me with some evidence for this view. When Rowling speaks of failure and her experiences with it, she is telling us what can happen when one does not attain success. She tells us what emerges when there is no success. Her words, “…failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was … I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized” indicates how a drive for success prevents individuals from being themselves. However, if you are lucky enough to hit rock bottom, you feel liberated because you have shamed and embarrassed yourself in the grandest way possible, leaving yourself with the greatest courage ever – the courage to be yourself and to not be measured by an externally defined yardstick. I believe that when human beings can be themselves, they are at their best self ever – because the inner core of all beings, when it is not driven by the fear of failure or the drive for success is pure and connected, it is not separate from the universe that surrounds it. A connected human being is a compassionate and loving human being, free of pain and conflict.
It is a pity that we humans have to experience failure to understand how debilitating the desire for success can be.
Based on the view I have expressed above, it is needless to say that I think success is never valuable. Why? Fundamentally, success is a measurement and any kind of measurement, however it is defined is problematic. When we measure, we fail to see what we are measuring. Only “what” we are measuring is real. The measurement is a symbol, something that is not real. It is a tool and one that we “think” is essential for understanding “what” we are measuring but perhaps things can be understood without being measured. Measurement necessitates that we quantity the “what” that we are trying to measure. However, I contend that the vast majority of life cannot be quantified. Life, most any of it, cannot be quantified, it is whole and illusive to casual observers like myself. A keen inspection alone can reveal something the whole. No measurement can do that. So, as long as we measure, we will fail to see the “what” that we measure and will remain stuck in symbols that are a step removed from reality. Working with symbols removed from reality leaves us with lives full of illusions. Reality and life is happening beyond our grasp while we divide, quantify and measure. This is why success of any kind is invaluable to living a “real” life.