Robert Holmes- Success

Handout or hard work?
Our lives revolve around it daily, the media tries to sell us on it everyday, and we sacrifice more just to obtain it than we do for anything else. What a single person will do to become successful is unfathomable, but what is success? Each and every one of us has a different idea of what success is and a different opinion of what makes you more successful than the next person. To me, success is achieving a unique and respected stature through hard work as long as what you achieved was done so through positive actions and was for the better good of the people around you.
Since the dawn of time, success has been a matter of great importance to everyone, but success in the past was much different from what it is today. Obtaining success, or becoming a successful person in ancient times, never relied on effort. From the Latin etymology, success comes from the word ‘succedere’ meaning to come close after (Oxford). In the earliest days of civilization, your success was not determined by your work effort, but more by your social or gender class. The pharos of ancient Egypt were said to be associated with the gods and chosen by the gods, they were not picked on their ability to rule a society or how well they handled their people. In biblical times, success was interpreted as a gift from god and was merely fate (Helium). In other societies like Greece, Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and many Chinese empires, social classes all determined how successful you were, and those that were on top, did not work for anything they received, they were seen as almost equivalent to the gods, and there for were handed everything.
Even in today’s society in the US, success still is not something that is always earned but rather handed around very nonchalantly. Whether it is in the household, at school, or in extra curricular activities, our kids no longer have to work for things to obtain satisfaction. Parents give hand outs to their kids no matter what it is, which is only teaching them that it is easy to be a success at something. They get rewards for staying clean, making their bed, and brushing their teeth, all things that should be done regularly as part of a normal day. In school, kids no longer have to work for their education. Its possible to make it all the way through high school with out putting forth any effort really, teachers are doing what ever they can to push them along. When these students receive a diploma, they will feel like they have succeeded while doing nothing, which will not happen in the real world. Everyone understands that little league sports are meant to be fun and teach kids good sportsmanship, but when kids are still getting trophies and rewards for last place, they aren’t learning the true value of the effort and hard work put in to earn that top position and succeed in life. The people that kids are looking up to as role models for success these days are also not the best representative of truly earned success. The media today paints the picture that those who are successful are the ones in the social spot light who are out enjoying their life, acting reckless and carelessly. But all they really ever did was inherit a large fortune from a family member that actually did the work. You should not be considered a success for doing something that is very basic and a routine part of society, but instead, it should be something that you worked hard for and is something that not everyone can achieve.
When speaking about success, you may have to go out of the media spotlight to find someone that actually represents a good stature of success. Lets take one example that many people think of when success comes to mind, winning. Winning can be considered synonymous with success in many aspects, like sports. Last summer when Lebron James, and Chris Bosh joined Dwayne Wade in Miami to create a “super team” the pressure on them to win was unbelievable. From the start of the season, they were considered the clear cut favorites, they had brought in these super stars to obtain success, and win a championship. All season they lived up to they hype, devouring everyone in their path, with a few slight bumps. It was fine and dandy up until the second game of the finals against the Dallas Mavericks, when everyone realized one thing, Miami was not the team everyone expected them to be, they were much worse. It came to everyone’s attention that while they were coasting through the whole year on skill, Dallas was working hard and putting in the time. They might not have had the superstars and fame that Miami had, but they did have the work ethic and the determination, which proved to be the better thing.
While hard work may be the most important thing in achieving success, it is not the only thing in determining what is successful and what is not. Success is something that is positive. It is a reward for working hard and doing good thing in your community, job, or life. Success cannot be considered a negative thing or bring negative light upon somebody. You cannot be successful if what you achieved was obtained through greed, evil tactics, and care for no one but your self. Success is such a coveted thing by many, and if they are doing shady and manipulative ways to reach this level of success, then they are not working hard for that success, they are attempting to take the easy route, which cannot be considered successful. The same applies to someone who may feel successful because they are widely known, but are only known for the wrong things they have done, they are infamous, not successful. For example, a CEO of a corporation is considered a very successful and prestige position, but if said CEO was involved in the stock market and banking industry collapse, then he cannot be a success, not matter what he did before hand, because he helped ruin an entire country for the benefit of him self. Success should always be positive and be looked at as a reward for doing something good.
Reaching a unique and respected stature does not always mean fame, but as long as what you did was something that not everyone has done, and is helping out the majority of society for the better good, you can be considered a success. In history, people have become successful for things that they have done that helped improve society. The likes of Alexander Flemming, and Albert Einstein are successful for their contributions to science, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela for their contributions to human rights, and Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Caty Stanton for their roles in woman suffrage have all done amazing things through out history to help man kind and improve society. They did this not to benefit them selves or their income, but to help those around them that were struggling through difficult times and didn’t have much more left to offer. Helping out society and performing tasks for the better good of the people will always make you more successful than someone who has just obtained a large amount of wealth.
While becoming very wealthy or reaching a high-ranking position in the government or some other from of power group may be considered successful by many, that’s because they equate successful with the wrong ideas. These people are money and power driven, looking to get to the top for their own personal endowment, instead of for everyone else. Success is no longer valued for what it is worth nowadays, the completion or achievement of something positive and unique that took more than hard work and determination to affect the greater good of society.

























Work cited
1.) Reynolds, lauren. "Analysis: Meaning of the word, Success." Helium. May 23, 2008: 4. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. .
2.) " success(suc·cess)." Ocford dictionaries. Web. .
3.) buffet, Peter. "How should college graduates define success?." USA TODAY. (2011): n. page. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. .