My Rookie Pieces 1

AWA ISSUE 6


There is only one definition of success — to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

The speaker has defined success as a realm in which one spends his or her life with his or her own intention. Under this definition, the truly successful persons are those who could choose their own ways of life. Nevertheless, I totally disagree with such a viewpoint. In terms of success, there are various definitions given by different people, depending upon their dissimilar objectives, unlike condition as well as diverse merits. In addition, the speaker’s definition will incur three problems.
(Viewing the definition in this light reveals three serious problems with it.)
Firstly, there is no person who actually attain the ‘success’，if this definition is drawed on to assess everybody’s life. Living in this pragmatic world, encounters numerous problems everyday, confined by diversified limits, every individual can’t get hold of the real freedom, not even to lead the life in his or her own way. In other words, unrestrained life is somewhat a kind of luxury for most of people, except for a modicum of tyrannical dictators.
(In other words, unrestricted freedom of choice is a luxury only a few people—perhaps a handful of tyrannical dictators and ultra-wealthy individuals—can afford.)

Secondly, the people who get high level of freedom will rarely be regarded as successful being by others. To illustrate this theory, I’d like to employ an analogy. Born in a wealthy family that controls 10% high-end property in Hong Kong, Li-cha-kai, son of top 10 magnates in the world Lee-ka-ching, has countless bucks sufficient to make him a successful person. Still, no one de facto thinks him really accomplishes success, since the loaded dandy is surrounded by plenty of scandals with a huge, complex financial group on his back.

A third reason this definition of success is unacceptable is that it violates some tradition concepts about success.(it repudiates some of our basic intuitions about success.) For most people, success represents achievement. Namely, whether you are successful or not solely depend on what you achieve in your life’s time. (The more you achieve, the more successful you are; conversely, the less you achieve the less successful you are. ) Defining success as freedom acts against this concept.

In conclusion, the definition brought forward by speaker is far-more-limiting, and belies our intuition of the concepts. I believe that most people in the world will be of the same opinion with what I suggest as the meaning of success which, explicitly, is that attainment of their own dreams, merits.