Why I’m halting my success
When I was four years old, the coolest girl in kindergarten gave me the “opportunity” to play with her and her friends, but under one condition, I had to follow her every order. If I declined, I knew she would get all the other kids to stop playing with me, but my pride couldn’t handle being ordered around.
I’ve never been able to follow orders if they did not align with my personal goals or beliefs. My biggest dream has always been to work for myself and start my own business. A restaurant, a café, a small shop or even opening a school. The last two years I’ve developed and lead creative courses and started writing a book, but things have yet to expand or develop into that “something great”. Lately there have been opportunities knocking on my door, inviting me to step out and take a real go towards my goal, but I’ve been hesitating to answer.
Initially I wondered if my hesitation stemmed from a fear of failure, of not being good enough, but soon I found that the reason was something completely different. I’m hesitating, because I’m not ready for success.
Tiffany Haddish, in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel live, tells a story about inviting Will and Jada Smith to a Groupon swamp tour. She drives to Will and Jada’s hotel with her 20 dollar a day rental car and as soon as Will jumps in the car, he says, according to Haddish “Woah, it’s been years since I’ve been in a regular car!”. That part of the story made me think back on all these scenes in different movies I’d seen, where a wealthy person, a princess or king or politician, is forced, for a short period of time, to live in the “regular” world, and is delighted by all the mundane objects, rituals and tasks of a poor person. Then I thought about all the tabloid news articles, about rich, beautiful, successful people who have lost it all to drug addiction or gambling. Are the rich and successful happy?
In a talk by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, titled “Happiness: What your mother didn’t tell you”, Gilbert talks about the correlation between happiness and money. He points out that statistically, happiness increases dramatically when someone is lifted from poverty to middle class, that moving from middle class to upper class increases your happiness as well, but not in the same degree and moving even higher, does almost nothing at all. But if being ultra-rich doesn’t make you happy, and If you are sick of being driven around in a limousine and would much rather sit in a “regular car”, why don’t you?
We find it entertaining when celebrities pull off stunts where they dress as regular people for a day and show up at offices or grocery stores to surprize their fans. It’s fascinating to see paparazzi images of beautiful models and socialites, without makeup, but we don’t really want to see them this way on a regular basis. Can you imagine rich and famous people giving up their wealth, status, and lifestyle to live a regular life? Even if they wanted to, they are trapped in the image and expectations that come with money and fame. There is something about the ladder of success, that makes it difficult to climb up and almost impossible to climb down without feeling shameful.
If the greatest successes are endgames, the last level, the defeating of the last boss, why would you want to arrive there at a young age? Society has been pushing us towards endgames all our lives; hurry and finish school, hurry and find a soulmate, hurry, and get a good job so you can hurry and buy a house. Hurry and get a promotion, and by the times your 40, you’ve got it all, while at the same time, given that life expectancy in a lot of industrial countries is more than 80 years, you still have 40+ years to go. What are you supposed to spend that remainder of your time with if you’ve “got it all” ?
Yes, Mozart was only 5 when he wrote his first composition and accomplished a great deal during his early years, but he also died when he was only 35. Napoleon died at age 52 and Steve Jobs at age 56.
I have no foreseeable plan of dying early, which begs the question, why should I be in a hurry to reach professional success? Growing up I’ve often heard older relatives, sighing with envy over our “young-peoples’ problems”, being insecure, unsure and frustrated and lately I’ve caught myself feeling the same envy over teenagers and young children.
Success brings a lot of pride and value, but it also takes away your insecurities, the crossroads of possibilities and your naïve beliefs in your limitless abilities. It was magical to believe in Santa when you were a kid, but then you grew older and the magic disappears. I can’t go back to the blissful ignorance of my younger years, but I wish I hadn’t been in such a hurry to grow up. The ladder of success will always be there, I can always start climbing towards the sky, but for the moment, I’m happy spending a little more time enjoying the flowers growing underneath my feet.