alee228 Posted November 6, 2010 Report Share Posted November 6, 2010 Alain de Botton shares a number of insights on success, and helps us begin to answer 2 important questions:1. What is success?2. Who is responsible for your success? What is success?When we think of success, we might think of lots of money, an impressive house, fast cars or a high powered job. While these things may indicate financial successful, Alain takes a more nuanced view of what it means to be successful. Alain states that "you can't be successful at everything ... any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on." Or to quote my first year microeconomics lecturer, "people face trade-offs." This is a powerful insight because it means that the idea of work-life balance is nonsense. A successful business career may require less than successful personal relationships or a non-existent family life. The implication is that we need to decide for ourselves the areas in which we would like to be successful. Who is responsible for your success? In modern society, we tend to believe that you are responsible for your own successes and also responsible for your failures. Western society fondly believes in the idea of meritocracy. Meritocracy being the idea that if one has talent, energy and skill they will rise to the top. That is, those who deserve to get to the top will get to the top. The flip side being that those who deserve to get to the bottom will get to the bottom. Alain contrasts our modern way of thinking about success with the view which prevailed during the middle ages. Alain indicates that in the middle ages a very poor person would be referred to as an unfortunate, that is, "someone who had not been blessed by fortune". The implication is that we need to remain aware that although success may result from talent and hard work, we should not discount the role that fortune plays in our own successes and failures and that of others. We do not have control over our fortune, and all we can do is play the hand we are dealt as best we can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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