GibburtSuccess, personally.
For a couple of months now, I have been thinking a lot about long and short term goals – and therewith, you could say, about purpose – which has attracted my attention to definitions of success. Fellow Gibburtian Robert had pointed out to me the very eloquently presented idea of Alain de Botton on this matter. Although I was taken with his ideas, this was not the type of definition I was looking for. De Botton presents a societal view on success and how this view would be beneficial for all by lowering anxiety about socially perceived success. It left me wondering: How does this relax the reflection with regards to one’s own success?
A little further exploration led me to the talk of John Wooden, who indeed offers a much more personal perspective. He defines success as follows:
“Peace of mind, attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.”
Certainly, this is much more the type of definition I was looking for. Better yet, it sounds reasonable, practical and congenial. Working towards this type of success still suggests striving towards having a positive effect on the world around you (given that criteria for ‘best’ can still come from a social context), but the rewards come inherently from within the self. All seemed to come to a fitting end. However, as is often my folly, I kept on thinking about this, reflecting it to my past results and observations and, inadvertently, I hit a snag. Please allow me to take a few steps back to explain my reservations.
There have been two debates that I have been passionately involved in: youth rights in ultra conservative municipalities and education. Both have ultimately led to disappointment for me. In both cases, I failed to reach my goals, or indeed, move even ever so vaguely into the right direction. Initially, I felt overpowered by people in more powerful positions (municipal Alder(wo)men, university board members, members of parliament, etc.). Among the people that I met, I could usually get a reasonable consensus as to what was a Good Idea in both these debates, so I reasoned it must be those in some way in positions of control that get in the way. However, when trying to spur aforementioned likeminded folk to take some sort of action (write letters, visit people, make public statements, coordinate – or actually show up for – a vote), it turns out that action is not a given from agreement.
After some more consideration, though, I had to think about what puts and, more importantly, what keeps people in positions of control. Most of these positions were either directly elected, or appointed by elected officials. In other words, these were positions that should be sensitive to public opinion. Failing to motivate a public opinion (even on the level of a Very Small municipality) such that a political paradigm shift became possible, suggested that it was generally not the popular opinion.
Now, I realize that many people have very awkward views on what democracy is. Some people say that a “real” democracy always protects minorities and works to maximize the freedom (whatever that is) of the individual. I disagree. In my mind, democracy definitely is a system of Majority Rule. Luckily, many (but certainly not all) democratic countries have gravitated towards proportional representation and coalition building, thus creating a political space for those whose interests and ideals are not among the majority. In practice, this is limited to considerate moderation in law-making.
For real change to come about, however, in any democratic systems I have seen, a majority is certainly required. Actually, the larger the change, the larger the majority required. This is all well and good as an abstract idea (you will not catch me promoting totalitarianism or anarchy), but since democracy has moved from voting people into patriarchal positions to do the ruling into a kind of per-issue accountancy, the Populace is assumed to be informed and capable in every issue and with regards to every decision. This takes from governance the power to lift a country’s standards (whether they be moral, health-wise, or by any other measure) above and beyond the greatest common denominator of the voters’ standards.
I am very well aware that all emancipation (women, immigrant, gay, poor, etc.) starts with a daunting struggle fought by the people, rather than by their government. However, the struggle of protesters and post-protest activists commonly strives to change the standards of government, either by changing the minds of representatives, or through the democratic process by changing popular opinion. This is because for any emancipation to have any chance at being raised to what could be considered a general standard, governance is required. In our notion of democratic debate of, say, half a century ago, this would be considered a given, since the debate itself was usually one among some sort of (intellectual, political, cultural, religious) elite.
Like I said, the power of governance to raise a common standard seems to have vanished, because those in governments are assessed per-issue per-day. The risk/benefit trade-off of sticking one’s proverbial neck out, has shifted.
How did I come to rant on about this issue in modern democracy? I was looking for a personal definition of success. In the past, I have been passionately involved with two debates, in both of which I have failed to make even the most marginal leeway. Coming back to Wooten’s definition of success, especially “knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.” When what you’re trying to be successful in lies in the domain of (modern) democracy, I have to wonder aloud where the tipping point lies between, on the one hand, being persistent in the hope to do that tiny bit more that you know you’re capable of and, on the other, being downright stubborn, a nag and a bore. I’m confident anybody reading this knows politicians that just sound like a broken record and thereby cripple public discourse.
In short, when is the time to decide that my convictions are unattainable or undesirable and move on to the pursuit other goals?
I really like how you described the mechanism of emancipation as a bottom-up process that has to appeal to decision makers by changing public opinion. I do agree there.
What I don’t understand is the difference you describe between the power to raise a common ground or standard, and the one-issue-politics. Maybe my confusion is born in the unclear definition of the latter: you probably don’t mean one-issue-parties, like the Party for Animals or Senior’s party, do you? You are referring to politicians that live by the opinion of the day, that don’t act but react to the media, right?
If so, then wouldn’t you agree that a politician’s reaction to current events is always colored by his personal set of believes and ideas? And if the politician is successfull in translating his believes and ideas to the public, and gathers support for his view of the world, this means that his opinion has been transformed in a common ground or standard.
So what you describe as two different things, I rather see as two necessary points in the law/policy making process.
Philip,
Thanks for the article, it is very recognizable but doesn’t it come down to this well known proverb/prayer:
Lord, give me the strength to accept what I cannot change, the power to change what I cannot accept and the wisdom to determine which is which?
Philip,
What interests me is that you do all the effort to find a more individual definition of success than Alain de Botton’s and in the end it still comes down to the effect your effort has on the community. I have not watched the John Wooden talk yet but I think he means that the effort counts and not the result.
Oh my! Three responses to answer to in one go. Well, here I go:
@Cédric:
I see where I was unclear. When I repeat the one-issue point, I say what I mean more precisely. I’ll put it more to the point: Politicians are assessed per-issue, per-day. Every day they vote for or against some issue, they will be assessed on that one issue. I could easily be misunderstood here. I’m certainly not complaining about politicians being under close watch from the media, et al. The problem I have, is that those media seem to have lost the long-term view of things. “If there was an issue last month, we’ll cordially forget about that, because we can’t really expect our audience to still remember, so today, we’ll re-assess everyone on every single issue.”
This point is subtly different from what you say about reacting to current events. In today’s politics, I see very little direction in what politicians do. In your terminology: I can’t tell what their beliefs and ideas *are*. Some are very clear in their politics, but those are mostly the ones on radical sides. In that part of the political spectrum where I consider voting, I only hear people “listening to the voters” and not commenting until “after the debate.” Usually the comment after the debate is that there needs to be more debate.
My point was that I feel that politicians don’t dare stick their neck out for ground-breaking change, because the first steps you take in the direction of radical change are always unpopular (otherwise, how radical can it be?).
@Simon:
Nope, I’m not asking for divine inspiration, I’m asking for proper understanding. What I mean by understanding, I will probably have to blog about some time soon, because I felt like writing something about that in response to how Robert used the term ‘answers’ in his Genesis vs. Evolution piece.
@Robert:
What I’m looking for is a perspective in which the work is put into the community, but the measure of success, or – if you will – gratification, comes from within. I interpret Wooden’s definition as saying you don’t need to succeed in terms of the effects on the community, as long as you gave it your best. My doubt is about how you know when you’ve given your best and failed (and are now an annoying nag), or whether you should press on even though results so far have been unpromising.
Philip,
The question to the answer whether you are becoming an annoying nag, is not in what you want to accomplish, but in how you choose to do it. If something is important enough for you, you should keep it at (maybe only change your tactic). In other words you will be fighting windmills…. Succes (as defined by mr Wooden) will come with the action and not with the result (Aristoteles anyone?). As long as you define succes – and as such your happiness- based just on the results you obtain you will be forever held hostage by the crowds….
Philip, true true, the interaction between those in power, I mean the government, and the opposition often is nothing but a farce, that I’ve come to accept as a necessary flaw of the democratic system.
Although I now understand your point better, I think that your view is rather pessimistic and dark. I do see the shallowness of many politicians who only live for the daily oneliner, but I disagree that the media forget the long term view of events. There are enough journalists that keep a long term view of events, but I guess you have to know where to look.
Moreover, I believe that from following the news on a daily basis, we can judge for ourself what kind of person a politician is. After all, his or her day-to-day decisions are determined by their beliefs and ideas.
@Robert:
The tricky part about mr. Wooden’s definition is that success doesn’t just come with the action, it comes with knowing that sufficient action has been taken. There is a difference.
@Cédric:
Often times the day-to-day decisions of politicians are more so determined by how they can stay in the good graces of public opinion that day. The worst thing is: to be an idealist politician, you would need to do this maybe even more so than non-idealists; if you’ve fallen from grace, there’s nothing you can do anyhow. The first precondition for any political result is that you participate in the politics. If you’ve lost the camera, you no longer participate.
Philip,
Yes, but with sufficient he means that you have done everything you can do. Not everything needed to ensure results but just everything period. In other worde the criterium for succes is within you: only you know wether you have tried hard enough. The result of this effort is completely unrelated to this. If you listen to the TED talk he even speaks about how on occasion his guys have ‘won’ according to him but have less points on the board than their opponents.
Robert,
This is precisely the point I’m trying to make; “only you know whether you have tried hard enough.” Apparently, I’m broken somehow, because my point is that I *don’t*.
When you’ve tried all the different ways you know how, and the only thing you can think of is to try the *same* ways again (as in, sometimes there isn’t a special way to get something done, but you just have to hammer home your point), when can you say you’ve repeated the same thing enough. Wooden’s examples all come with well-defined end-points for the game’s outcome. This is why he can say “even though they lost the game, they were successful.” This becomes considerably harder when you can’t decide whether the game is won or lost, because you don’t know whether it has ended. I know the success isn’t defined by the win or the loss, but it helps to know whether you should still be playing.