In all seriousness

[drwex]

What does success look like to you?

This is a serious question and I'm not even sure I've formed it correctly. I'm interested in how you all answer it, regardless.

Comments

[goddessfarmer.livejournal.com]

I think there are lots of levels of success. Do you mean "to successfully complete a task?" or "be successful in one's career (or family or other big picture aspect)?" or be a successful person? or feel successful?
For myself, personally, success, at times, has been measured by the day, or sometimes even the hour. Some days, what it takes for me to feel successful is to write a to-do list and actually do the things on it. My bar is sometimes very low, and I acknowledge that, but if I raised it, then it would be way up there and I would be stuck in the pits of despair and not only would that ruin this day, but many following.
If you were to ask me if I think you are successful person, I would say yes. However, I have no way of knowing if that's how you feel about yourself.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Realistic success, or fantastic success?

The former is financial stability, a loving home life, time for my hobbies, things to look forward to, and health and wisdom for my daughter. Not necessarily in that order.

The latter involves staggering wealth, crushing my enemies, and being able to speak my mind without fear of repercussions.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Depends on where in the task-life spectrum you are asking.

On a tiny level, having cleaned the to-do list thoroughly.

At a larger level, having everything going so well you can live life on a ballistic trajectory without worry. Not that you *do*, but that you *can*. You can then put 100% of yourself into things you love, and obstacles just get squashed without thought.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I like this one. For me, "success" has a certain amount of stability attached, so that if things go sideways, you have time and energy to deal with it.

I've never completely cleaned my to-do list, though!

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

What they said.

I guess I have reached a level of maturity that I never feel like a failure, but 'success' is a moving target depending on what is going on in my life. e.g., If I'm physically or mentally unhealthy, being able to go about normal business is 'success'. I cut myself a lot of slack at the moment, and not judging myself feels like a great success. My success is unique to me and I cannot judge myself by other peoples standards of success or vice versa. Conversely, some of my feelings of success do stem from how other people judge me or my work. Achieving in my field makes me feel successful to myself, and BE successful to others. That is what allows me to "live life on a ballistic trajectory without worry."

[noire.livejournal.com]

For me, success is a warm and loving home life, and a larger life filled with people I love and appreciate who love and appreciate me. It means enough financial stability to meet my needs and a bit more for some pleasures (especially travel, but also dinners out with friends on occasion and the freedom to attend the theater, ballet and concerts that appeal to me.) But it also means work that I find meaningful, that challenges me intellectually, and makes me feel that I am contributing to the overall wellbeing of the world--even if only in a very small way. I want to do good and I want to know that what I've done matters.

Some of what made me come to this was an exercise I found in a book that said to think of how you want your life to be when you are old (however you want to define old.) How do you want people to remember you at your funeral? That was interesting, and helped define a lot.

[pisicutsa.livejournal.com]

This. Same for me. :)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Add in 'as much sex as I want'...

[mizarchivist]

In the continuum of learning, which involves making mistakes, success can be learning from those mistakes; being willing to do new things that will give the opportunity to grow/learn (even... ESPECIALLY if you're afraid); not giving up after a sound drubbing; staying graceful about things in winning or losing.

[c1.livejournal.com]

I think for me, success is collecting experiences. None of my patients who were on death's door ever said "gee, I wish I'd had more time to spend at the office." So while work can enable the collection of experiences, it's generally not an experience in and of itself -- you usually have to get away from work to experience interesting things. Success, for me, will be lying on my deathbed, looking back at a life well lived, and not at one where I was slaving away for an almighty dollar that I can't take with me anyway.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure success is anything other than a point phenomenon, or, as a good friend of mine might say "Success at what?"

I have been largely successful at beating back the phantoms of my childhood and getting to a financially-stable place. Way back when I was 12, that would have been success beyond my wildest dreams. Now, it's just a base to build upon.

[sariel-t.livejournal.com]

1) Doing something meaningful with my life.
2) Being financially solvent.
3) Spending meaningful time with people I care about.
No order, all are equally important to me.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

For starters, not being a failure? Not being a failure seems like a lovely and lofty goal quite out of my reach at this point.

[jasmine mcdaniel osburn (from livejournal.com)]

Happy
Loved by someone
Money
Fulfillment of life

[ceo]

Since my early 20s, I've defined success, for me, as having made the world a better place for my having been in it.

[buxom-bey.livejournal.com]

I once told Jon that my measure of financial success was the ability to send my child to summer camp. My mother raised me on her own and while she was able to scrape up enough money to send me once, going every summer was something I keenly felt the lack of in my youth.
While Roo isn't yet at the age for overnight camp, the fact that we are able to take her places (Legoland, MoS, Discovery Museum, Skyzone) on a not infrequent basis makes me feel like we have already achieved that marker.
In a broader sense, I think success is when you can look at all the aspects of your life, from the best to the worst and every little bit in-between, and come away with an overall sense of contentment.

[dpolicar]

(Replying without reading comments)

This may sound like an evasive non-answer, but success to me usually looks like the absence of failure. That is: most of the time, I am simply attempting to avoid violating obligations or expectations. When I don't feel like I'm at risk of doing those things right this moment, I feel pretty successful.

The second tier of success for me looks like praise.

I don't endorse any of this; not hardly. But it's basically true.

[hartmans]

For me, it's happiness, seeing those I care about grow, and seeing some sort of impact on the world around me. Because of the specific path I've chosen, it tends to have a lot to do with seeing love, empathy and understanding blossom. Interestingly, I fit my software development work in there without really needing to expand the definition.