The sweet smell of success, or is that pie?

Everyone wants to be a success. The issue seems to be what qualifies as a success. If I were to score a single basket in an NBA playoff game I would consider that a success of epic proportion, and I do mean epic. Mel Gibson would be chosen to direct the movie version. I don’t know how he will explain having the whole thing subtitled because the characters are speaking the ancient Polynesian language of the Maori tribes in New Zealand, but I guess it just makes it more epic. On the other hand, LeBron James is deemed a failure if he scores less than 20 points. Success is relative.
Shooting for success can cause a lot of angst. The key is to keep the goals realistic for the person and situation at hand. I have worked in schools for a lot of years and some kids are adept at some things and not at others (Warning: making a statement of such insight and acuity of perception comes from years of intensive training and should not be attempted by an amateur.). Let’s say a student is asked to solve for X using the following number sentence: X + 17 = 18. Now a kid in middle school can have success with such a task and therefore feel good. Another example could be like this: A train leaves Sacramento at 2:00 AM on a Thursday. A second train departs from Chicago at 6:00 AM on the same day. If both trains travel at an average speed of eighty miles per hour, each stopping once for forty-seven minutes apiece (the first train stops at Winnemucca, Nevada and the second train stops at Ottumwa, Iowa), using only an abacus and a sharp stick in the dirt explain why the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union was unable to maintain political control after 1923. Trying to answer such a question would cause great anxiety or even a sense of abject failure in many folks. While we all knew one guy in our high school class who could actually answer the preceding question, we also knew the chance he would get a date for the prom was as likely as a Shakespeare in the Park production of “King Lear” starring Ashton Kutcher. Which kind of success would you prefer? A scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study how quarks are affected when one reverses the polarity or getting to second base with Heidi Harris on a sultry April night. Personally, I received no scholarship and spent the night of my senior prom in my parents’ living room watching “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters” on TV, that Irlene was a cutie.
A favorite movie line of mine was in “Heaven Can Wait.” Buck Henry is talking to Warren Beatty and he asks him to not so much lower as broaden his standards. That is probably good advice when one is deciding how to measure success in life. When I moved to Los Angeles my goal was to become the next Richard Donner (the director of “The Three Musketeers”, “The Omen” and “Superman: The Movie.”). I then broadened my idea of success. Instead of emulating Mr. Donner (director of multi-million dollar movies) my goal was NOT to emulate the Donner Party by getting stranded in the mountains and resorting to cannibalism to stay alive. I did get stuck in St. Johns, Kansas during a blizzard, but my mom had sent a bag of groceries with my family so once we borrowed a can opener from the nice lady in the motel office starvation was no longer a concern.
In America success is most often measured by the money and power one has accumulated. Since I am a married man with three children I do not have much of either. So I did a little research on what makes rich and powerful people. Malcolm Gladwell, a best-selling author and consultant to big companies was interviewed about what are the traits of highly successful businessmen. He pointed to two characteristics which are shared by most. The first is something he called “explanatory style.” This refers to how an individual explains failure to himself. Truly successful people do not immediately dismantle their egos when the have a set-back. There is not a lot of wallowing in self-recrimination which leads to a “what’s the use I’ll just fail again” mentality. The truly rich and powerful simply blame their staff, fire a few folks, and move on to the next triumph. The other characteristic is stamina, but I’m kind of tired now so I don’t think I will continue writing…