Earlier in the week, Mr. O'Connor brought up an idea about how people who live around here quantify success. Not to generalize, but I think it is fair to say that most people around here would define success as getting the best grades, going to the best college, and making the most money. This brief conversation that we had got me thinking about the reasons I put so much effort into getting good grades in school.
Success should me measured by doing what you love, not how much money you make doing it. If it was just about making money, an astonishing amount of people would be failures. I think that this measure of success is inherent in most Americans. This is true because of the troubling economy, and the general understanding of the American dream. The American dream is to find a great job and make money.
I now disagree with the concept of success being monetarily interpreted because it is an arbitrary way to assign someone their true worth. Where did this definition come from, and why is it still stuck in so many of our heads?
I think that this idea that money indicates success has stuck around because we have given money so much power. We idolize people with a lot money, we obsess over products that cost a lot of money. People make a living by studying money and predicting its movement. The economy was a huge topic in the past election. Society focuses on money, and so do the people in that society.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the American Dream, and I think that this notion may have come from that.
I agree with Sean, that our society has learned to value money over anything else. I define success as setting a goal and reaching that goal, and many people have set their goal to be rich. Maybe we need to redefine what we consider to be rich. Does being rich have to be about money?
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