Resilience
How the Pandemic May Change Our Idea of Success
Our externally defined model of success has been, for the most part, a failure.
Posted April 17, 2020 Reviewed by Matt Huston
Wealth. Power. Fame. Since the USA became a country, most Americans have looked to one or more of these measures to determine if they were or were not successful in life. While success is primarily defined as the “achievement of intention,” a secondary definition for the term is, in fact, the “attainment of fame, wealth, or power,” a clue to how Americans have largely interpreted the concept.
The catch, however, is that such a formula of success has made a good number of Americans feel not especially successful. Relying on any or all of these three outer-directed criteria to measure success has proven to be problematic, as the cards of the deck are inherently stacked against achieving them.
Most of us are not famous, wealthy, or powerful, after all, and even if one does qualify on any of those dimensions, there are always other people who possess greater quantities of one or more of them. We tend to define these three criteria in relative versus absolute terms, leading to an existential dead-end.
As well, our standard narrative of success has only intensified a competitive, comparative, and, I believe, unhealthy cultural climate. It’s admittedly difficult to resist subscribing to the traditional notion of success grounded in the pursuit of some combination of wealth, power, and fame. (I do it myself.)
The perceived need to achieve certain things in life that conform to social norms has served as a major form of pressure, however, with those electing to opt-out by taking an alternative path deemed losers in the game of life. Acquiring the symbols of success in order to earn respect and admiration from others often has come at a high cost, with abundant hard research and anecdotal evidence backing up that claim.
Ironically, then, our dominant, externally defined model of success has been, for the most part, a failure. By setting up unreasonable expectations and creating an essentially unwinnable game, the model has, over the years, led to much anxiety, emotional insecurity, and general angst. I suspect that the use of these measures as social currency is a significant factor in our unimpressive national levels of happiness and well-being.
There is, however, some good news. Like other cataclysmic historical events, notably the two World Wars and the Great Depression, the global pandemic appears to be triggering a major shift in our values. While the coronavirus has, of course, brought some terrible things with it, it’s also directly responsible for sparking a bunch of positive things. Indeed, there are many signs that the pandemic is changing us, and for the better.
We’ve been reminded, for example, what is and what isn’t important, and we’ve learned that we don’t need as much stuff as we thought. We’ve deepened our ties with loved ones and met some new neighbors. We’ve been shown that the planet is a single, indelibly intertwined community and have reconnected with people we’ve hardly even thought about in years. We’ve had long, deep conversations that we never seemed to have time for, and yes, some of them have been about the meaning of life and why we are here.
Happily, the list goes on. Many of us have reconsidered our priorities in life and have gained a new appreciation for the simple ability to be with other people. We’ve come to understand the preciousness of the freedoms that we normally enjoy and have called a much-needed time-out to our get-as-much-work-done-in-as-little-time-as-possible lifestyle. We’ve become a lot more mindful, and we have a renewed appreciation of the gift of good health. Being reminded of mortality is, after all, the best way to celebrate life.
All this, I suggest, will have a positive, long-lasting impact on the American idea of success. How can we feel successful when there are people all around us who appear to have achieved more and greater things?
Being in the moment and taking joy in small victories are just a couple of ways to increase our success quotient, something entirely consistent with the current shift in values taking place as a result of the pandemic. (Whether we know it or not, we’re trading on Buddhists’ literally Zen philosophy.)
As well, scrapping our comparative view of success would go a long way towards peace of mind, not an easy thing to do, but one that would make us much more secure in what we have accomplished in life. There are many other, perfectly valid ways to consider the worth of oneself and of others—degree of kindness, generosity, and wisdom, to name just a few. And due to the pandemic, there are indications of a wholesale reassessment of what makes a person truly and genuinely successful in life.
If merely as a way to show a submicroscopic infectious agent who’s boss, let’s all try to adopt a more meaningful and positive model of success in our everyday lives in order to achieve greater well-being and happiness.
