Measure of Success

This is something I think about fairly frequently and it's pretty simple really, how do you measure success? We each have a personal idea of what success or accomplishment is, so what's yours and why?

I see success as this: when you have a goal in mind, you try to achieve said goal. How well you do in attempting to reach your goal is the measure of success.

Philly Homer wrote:I see success as this: when you have a goal in mind, you try to achieve said goal. How well you do in attempting to reach your goal is the measure of success.

Thats pretty much my thinking as well.

It's how many people I step on before I get what I want.

If you have a goal and you reach it you have reached success it's how much more above that goal you achieve that is measured.

Fall short and it is not success it's a failure.

But what if you learned things in the process? I mean if you look at it, we will "fail" at more things than we succeed at in life, so if we measured our lives by completed goals as successes, wouldn't that make the human race overall highly depressed and almost suicidal?

Not setting goals would be failure, as there is no possible way to succeed. People in high school start to become losers because they just dont do anything.

Darkwing wrote:But what if you learned things in the process? I mean if you look at it, we will "fail" at more things than we succeed at in life, so if we measured our lives by completed goals as successes, wouldn't that make the human race overall highly depressed and almost suicidal?

If you learn things in the process it is still a failure, but at least will help you suceed the next time...

See I would argue that it isn't. Like that particular goal may not have been achieved, but if you've learned things, if you've grown, I would consider that a success in and of itself. It goes to the old adage of it's the journey that's important, not the destination

^Basically this. You'd like to follow your own path, but sometimes life sets another road on which you detour.

If you try to create a cure for cancer but instead find a way to cure ALS, sure, that's a failure of a sort. You didn't find a cure for cancer, but you instead did something you didn't intentionally set out to do. Can it be construed as success? You bet your ass it can be.

I think too few people see this (including me) and it creates this vacuum in people's souls, where they don't feel their worth in life. I think if people held onto a concept like this, it would give them better purpose and make them better people

You are right. Darkwing, I challenge you to become the new Sigmund Freud.

Well, I doubt I'd be that famous, but I am intrigued to see how I like psych in the fall

Well, that's still your goal to achieve, right?

Actually, I'm going to make another thread where I make huge assumptions, make generalisations and think I can tell you what to do, in regards to university.

Basically you're gonna be telling me to get drunk on a daily basis?

Darn. No need for the topic now, I'm out of ideas!

Yep, that pretty much comes down to one of the two most common pieces of "advice" I'm given on a regular basis

Power cut means the half hour of writing has been lost. Gaaah.

Try using a text processor next time... You can use LibreOffice if you don't have one xD