Our New Model of Success

Norene Malone’s recent article in the New York Times, “The Age of Anti-Ambition,” is deservedly getting a lot of attention. In her piece, Malone convincingly argues that there has been a fundamental shift in Americans’ attitudes toward work, much in part to the reality check that was and remains COVID-19.

While the pandemic has indeed catalyzed us to think differently about work (and pretty much everything else in our lives), the notions of ambition and success have been in flux for some time. Due to a wide variety of reasons, the linear and hierarchical brand of success that has long dominated American life is gradually fading as a more evolved version develops.

Easternism appears to be playing a significant role in the reformation of success, especially the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang. Seemingly contrary forces—success and failure—are actually complementary, we are increasingly realizing, flip sides of the same coin. Wabi-sabi—the Japanese aesthetic predicated on imperfection—also seems to apply. Like an irregular-shape bowl or not-quite-aligned piece of furniture, we each have flaws that reveal our humanity, and all for the better.

The mainstreaming of Buddhism in the United States is yet another contributing factor, as it offers a less judgmental and “top-down” form of spirituality than Judeo-Christian religions. As well, the popular practices of meditation and mindfulness, which each prescribe staying in and appreciating the moment, are in play, enervating the life-as-destination model that could be said to have served as the basis for our core mythologies of the American dream and the American way of life.

If one needs additional proof that our traditional narrative of success is broken, and perhaps always was so, just take a look around. Contrary to popular belief, the most successful people are not those who have realized great quantities of money, power, and fame but rather those who are content with their place in life. There is nothing wrong with ambition, they understand, as long as it doesn’t quash everything else in life, particularly relationships with other people.

Acknowledging the simple fact that our time on this planet is limited—something that a surprising number of people do not do—also goes a long way to placing success in context, as does being grateful. Gratitude, or thankfulness for what one has, is having a moment all its own these days, in fact, with many abandoning the inherently losing proposition of acquisition-based success. The world is not enough for those clinging to a more-is-more philosophy of life or those who are intent on comparing their achievements to those of others. “Walk with your head high and your heart humble and you’ll find the greatest sense of inner peace and wholeness,” advised John Addison in Success magazine in 2017, the rather over-the-top self-help language not taking anything away from the astuteness of the message.

Alongside the emergence of this new “failure-forward” movement has come a greater recognition that success is not a race. Probably due at least in part to the integration of failure with success, the popular belief that ambition is limited to younger adults is fading. As the population ages in America and the rest of the world, the lifespan of success is expanding, a positive thing for mid-lifers and older folks who still want to chase their dreams.

As Ken Dychtwald’s research has shown, many people got sidetracked in their 20s and 30s, only to find a few decades later that they had unfinished business in life. Careers, marriages, and kids often left little time to do what one loved, leaving a hole that thankfully can be filled by those having some time and money in their hands. Today, there is no shortage of late bloomers pursuing their particular passions, many of them determined to express their latent creativity or achieve a certain long-held goal so that they can raise their personally-defined success quotient.