The Eternal Question

What is success and who sets the parameters by which it is measured? This is something we deal with throughout our lives. I am 61 and I am still trying to define it for myself. That’s not because I am indecisive or that I overthink, although I am and I do, but because success changes at every stage of life depending on your life experiences and your developing personal views.

When I was a child my success was defined by my academic success or lack thereof. I was only really successful for three years at school if you take that measure, my time at St Andrew’s. I blitzed through the Common Entrance exam at King’s School Rochester and was offered a 50% scholarship for my whole time there. Unfortunately, when my parents discussed the matter with the Headmaster at St Andrew’s he told them that the difference between King’s and the Maths School, the grammar school I had a place for after the 11 plus, was polish. My parents, I think, misunderstood the importance of polish as I did myself for many years. Watching an excellent documentary about Harrow I saw that it was an essential component of getting into the best jobs and the higher echelons of society.

For the next seven years, my personal measurement of success was simply getting to the end of the day as the Maths School took away any shred of confidence, personal or academic. Interestingly my head of year told my parents at the end of my second year that I would be a Maths School failure! Well, a degree, a Masters and 35 years as a much better teacher than he or 90% of his colleagues could ever aspire to being means I proved him wrong!! Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. Back to the question for today.

As an adult my measure of success, at least according to society, has changed, almost year by year depending on my situation in life. Sometimes I have barely been hanging on the bottom rung of the ladder and sometimes, well one year as an Academic Director, I was on one of the higher rungs. It has been a roller coaster ride in my professional life so I have had to look for a different measure of success and that has been focused on my family.

So, my measure of success is this. I want my family to be happy, as far as that is possible, and I want them to find what fulfills them personally and professionally. In order to help them in that Janet and I have given them the most settled upbringing we could, in sometimes difficult situations, and we continue to support them. Along with this I want Janet to be as happy, healthy and fulfilled as possible and I do everything I can to help this to happen.

My measure of success is now focused on those I care about and that is a much better measure than the money focused measure of success decided on by society. Around the world, success is judged by money, but as a significant amount of that success is down to family and connections, many people are condemned to failure and some are guaranteed success. When you see success in terms of those you love you are much more likely to have a better time of it.