Success: A Word Undefined

Success: A Word Not Defined in a Dictionary

There is no longer time to enjoy the simple things in life. Few still take time to catch baseball games, watch sunsets, or eat s'mores around campfires because it would be less time in the workplace. If you slow down someone else will set the curve in your calculus class, get the new promotion, or place a bid on the house of your dreams. Our success minded society has almost completely eliminated the possibility of being considered successful without having achieved more than the person standing next to you. Many people live for the moments when their work is praised or they are compared in a positive light to a great person who has come before them in their field. However, once that moment is over all that is left for someone who lives like that is another set of tasks to accomplishment, and the redundant need for praise fuels him to continue on even though often the real reasons behind their actions are never truly known to even themselves. The only way that one can truly be happy in our American society is if he is content with his own achievements, because if he looks towards friends, family, and the media for reinforcement all he will gain is a need to continue on in the endless cycle of striving for the unattainable goal of material happiness.

Our school systems are the root of this brainwashing. As a product of my school district's "gifted" program, I was more exposed to this idea than many of the people that I

am now friends with. Many off my classmates had mindsets much like Sharon Slayton, a psychology student who was obsessed with the idea of success. Her feeling that "merely being 'good' has never quite been 'good' enough" is they way that almost everyone I grew up with thought (303). Everyone from our teachers to our parents assumed that we were going to "succeed" because we were labeled as gifted, and because of that the pressures put on us increased as we reached high school.

Slayton said that when she reached that age she "was looking for more ways to show 'them' that she could do anything, and do it well" (304). I think that she put it very well when she used the term "them," because it is the first time when she alludes to the idea that she had lost sight of her actual goals and reasons for achieving. She does not even know who she is trying to impress anymore, just that she has been succeeding for so long that she has to continue or else she will lose the race that she is running in her mind, In high school there are so many outside influences on us that it seems as if almost nothing that we do is for our own benefit, and that our sole reason for succeeding is to show others that we can keep up with our peers.

Parents are one group that seems to put endless pressure on their kids these days by becoming so involved in their lives. The constant reinforcement when we do something good is a seemingly beneficial thing to do, yet at the same time can be the root of much of our pain. Every time that we reach a new plateau of success in any aspect of life it seems as if it only makes it harder to impress our critics the next time we do something. When we do something normal instead of outstanding there is a sense of disappointment because it is not as good as we are we have previously shown. Slayton referred to this when she said that "the obsession had taken over my behavior, almost completely; being constantly challenged was now a way of life. Never resting, never relaxing, always striving, always achieving - these things had become second nature" (304).

When I was a junior in high school I started to change my goals. I had been doing exactly what my parents and teachers had expected for ten years, and it really bothered me that because I had been doing it for so long it seemed as though my accomplishments were no longer noticed. My grades began to slip and after the second quarter, and when the report card came home all of my previous worries and motivations returned. I could not believe that I had let myself slip so far, but at the same time it almost felt good that my parents were giving me the attention I always wanted. They said nothing to me but that they were disappointed, but for once it seemed like they were genuinely interested in my school work, even if it was in a negative light. When I went upstairs, I sat on the landing to hear what my parents were going to say about me. After a lot of discussion about the specific classes and grades, my mother made a statement that I will never forget.

"How did we go wrong over the past eighteen years? Where did we fail in raising our son?" At that moment, my life changed forever. What had started out as a lack of effort in school for the first time in my life ended up having the completely opposite effect than what I had desired. I told myself from that moment on that for the rest of my life I would succeed to prove to my mom that she had not failed.

It was no longer a personal want to do well, but it had become a situation where I had no other option. Her influence in my life caused me to be even more driven