How do you define success in life?

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This is a prompt tailor-made for my blog. My philosophy project is about answering this and other such “big questions”. So let’s get to it.

Success in anything is usually defined through external metrics, usually set by society. But you can also define success subjectively for yourself using internal metrics.

For things like a race or a competition, external metrics are the ones that count. It would be pretty silly for someone to say, “I won the race because I define success as finishing last.”

For things like career or relationships, you’re better off defining success in your own way and pursuing that. Chasing socially defined success in such categories can lead to highly unhealthy lifestyle and mental stress. Knowing the difference between these two types of things and when to accept external metrics and when to use internal metrics goes a long way in living a good life.

Success/Failure

However, when it comes to life itself, I choose to not define success at all. I don’t think there are any metrics that apply to life itself. My reasoning is that no matter how you define success in life, you’re simultaneously defining failure as well. Success and failure are two sides of the same coin.

We usually only think about success and we try to motivate people to pursue success and we think, “Well there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” What we don’t realize is that we’re also defining failure and calling everyone who fails to meet our metrics, a failure. Now, that’s fine to do in a race or even in something like a career, but who is anyone to say to anyone else that they’re a failure in life?

Life Well Lived

The most reasonable definition of success in life is a life well lived. A well balanced life where you do reasonably well in your career but you also have deep relationships. You take care of your body and are reasonably fit but you also enjoy eating delicious things. You have some passionate hobbies and also find time to volunteer and do stuff for others. You might not be happy all the time but you’re happier than most and when you die, you’re surrounded by loved ones. After you’re gone you’re remembered for a long time by both family and acquaintances.

No one will object to someone who says that this is what success in life looks like. But this also means that everyone who fails to live such a life (and let’s be honest, that’s most of us) has failed in life. I don’t think anyone has the right to say that about anyone’s life.

What about someone who got into drugs at a young age because of the environment they were in and then overdosed at 21? Did they fail at life? What about someone who committed suicide because they were suffering a lot and couldn’t find any way out? What about someone who was just an average Jane, still trying to figure out adulting when she got hit by a reckless driver and died at 28? Or the average Joe who ate lots of junk food, worked a menial job, had a bunch of kids, got obese and died of a heart attack at 50?

Are we comfortable calling anyone’s life a failure?

Now you might say, “Well we’re not really talking about others, we’re just trying to define success for ourselves in our own life.“

That’s great but by thinking in terms of success and failure we’re setting up great expectations from ourselves and our lives. We might not be willing to say this about others, but is it okay to think of your own life as a failure if you fail to meet the definition you come up with?

I think we put too much pressure on ourselves about life. We make it unnecessarily complicated. Life is pretty simple. If you’re alive, you’re already doing it. You’re having a unique experience called Your Life.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against trying to shape your life to how you want to live. But in my opinion, it should be done by thinking of it in terms of choosing what kind of experience you want to have, not in terms of succeeding in life.

When you choose to shape your experience, failure doesn’t become existential. It just becomes the kind of experience you had. You tried to have a certain experience, but you ended up having a slightly different one. That’s perfectly okay. That’s even expected because your experience in life is not fully in your control. You can only control what experience you choose and how you pursue it. Then reality, the world, dumb luck etc. interject and co-shape your experience.

Life is not about having a specific type of experience or meeting a specific set of metrics, external or internal. Life is an experience that you’re already having and will continue to have as long as you live. All you can do is try to shape it in ways that you’d prefer and let go of any expectations of success or failure and then just enjoy the experience that you end up having.

There is no way to fail (and therefore succeed) in life. It’s very much like a vacation in that way! You don’t succeed or fail in your vacation, right? You might have a great time. You might have a terrible time. Either way you had an experience. And then it’s over.

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Cover Photo by Portraits of Modern Dairy on Unsplash