Each of us has an internal perception of success that is based upon the environment in which we live and the “tribes” to which we belong. If you are a student involved in what has been called “the paper chase,” (the quest for degrees and diplomas) then academic performance may be your measure of success.
If you’re an academic, such as a professor or researcher, your measure of success will be tallied in your list of publications, awards and citations. The intensity of this competition for success was captured in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting.
When Fields Medalist, Professor Gerald Lambeau, acknowledges that the young janitor at the University, named Will Hunting [played by Matt Damon] has superior mathematical talent, he says:
I can’t do this proof. But you can, and when it comes to that it’s only about..it’s just a handful of people in the world who can tell the difference between you and me. But I’m one of them… Most days I wish I never met you…Because then I could sleep at night, and I wouldn’t have to walk around with the knowledge that there’s someone like you out there…And I didn’t have to watch you throw it all away.
As you might expect, many people outside academe have a different measure of success. The American Dream, originally conceptualized as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” evolved after World War II into the pursuit of financial success. In Arthur Miller’s celebrated play Death of a Salesman
(1949), the main character, Willy Loman is a salesman who expresses what would become a popularly accepted measure of success:
The man [Willy’s brother Ben] knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out, the age of 21, and he’s rich! … The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want.
Over and over again, Willy expresses the importance of being liked, and the supreme importance of being “well-liked” as the panacea for achieving the American Dream–financial success. People who believe their happiness derives from acquiring beautiful homes, exotic cars, or a lifestyle filled with amenities such as travel, will tend to put a high premium on economic success. Though they may regard intelligence as a desirable asset, they tend to attribute greater status to those who exude a higher economic lifestyle. To many of these people, the main value of high intelligence is the extent to which it can generate wealth. The typical put down against intellectual pretence is often stated as, “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?”
However, there are others who put a higher premium on success in sports, chess, or the arts. Many members of Generations X and Y (those born after 1980) who spend a lot of time on social media, are obsessed with fame and widespread recognition. Our quest for achieving “success,” however we define it, arises out of our human need to be valued in the tribe to which we belong, whether it is academe, business, sports or the arts. Our personal perception of our own level of success feeds or deprecates our self worth during early adulthood, playing into our perceived “marketability” in the competition for mating privilege. This impulse may have been hardwired into us through the “survival-of-the-fittest” syndrome that characterized our evolution.
So, academic performance is not the only measure of success in life, it’s merely one of the first measures we encounter as we enter school. However, as life unfolds, we begin to see a variety of other ways to define success. (See also: https://www.intelligence-and-iq.com/whats-the-best-way-for-a-person-of-average-iq-to-be-successful-in-life/)
So, if you’re a priest, your ambition might be reaching the status of cardinal, and if you’re Pope Paul VI, your dream might be playing soccer as well as Pelé.
