The current culture we live in tends to glamorize success. Especially when this success is from hard-earned humble beginnings, applying blood and sweat, then reaching high achievement.
What everyone loves is a winner. They want to be them or be with them.
This love can also apply towards someone, usually an underdog who they root for such as a sports hero, a rock star, someone who’s beat the odds in some way.
The individuals who has succeeded despite their obstacles, those who have taken on risky or courageous business ventures and then profited.
They are those who has risen to fame, because of their perseverance, and for some, whose with extraordinary talent has reached their potential.
We also tend to celebrate those who has lived through troublesome traumatic circumstances, and has managed to carve out a life, despite the odds.
We All Love Winners
There are also others who are less visible in the public eye, but are still significant successes, relative to they being compared to the achievements of others.
Such as being able to maintain a profitable venture, when their immediate competitors are failing within the same industry.
This also applies to being able to keep their jobs when everyone else, their direct peers and colleagues, are losing their employment status.
In all of these cases, there is a price to pay, which comes with this success.
The Pain Of Success
Success is calculated in a variety of different ways. Someone who grew up poor, and is now fully employed and able to support their family, can be considered successful.
The ability to precede our preset ideals, where being successful can’t be measured by a yardstick.
One strong motivating force is striving towards a sense of worthiness, in the effort towards matching the image of their ideals.
This to also avoid potential failure, as well as to cover any shortcomings, which becomes the internal criteria for shame as well as guilt.
This includes approaching our ideals that can bolster a sense of being needed, as well as feeling important while masking feelings of vulnerability.
This feeling of vulnerability injected with shame or guilt, can linger directly in their persona, despite their success.
They then become self conscious, as they feel anxiety or fraudulence about not being truly worthy, or deserve what they achieved.
Once You Finally Reach That Success
When you initially strive for success, you idealize where you eventually want to be. How complete your life will become.
You visualize the people who resides in that coveted position, as being fulfilled and happy.
But once you finally get there, you recognize the same vulnerabilities you sought to disown before your new identity, still exists.
You find the same insecurities and the low self-esteem are still there, even though you’re now in a different realm.
Some of the most highly successful people as a result, will subsequently become self destructive, miserable, or self-defeating.
They experience bouts of anxiety, begin to overindulge in bad vices, or engage in behaviour which can risk their relationships or even their health.
If we as humans strive towards achieving our ultimate goals and reach them, it becomes curious why we would have these feeling once our ideal selves are achieved.
I’m Successful… Now What?
We witness this when it comes to public figures, or celebrities who are constantly being subjected to humiliation and shame.
Whether it’s self-imposed, or as a result of being disclosed or exposed by others, namely the gossip mongers.
Along with success also comes notoriety, where there are some who will look at the success of others, and at times want to see that person fall apart or completely collapse.
Social media constantly revels in this vulnerability. It dwells in the self imploding behaviour of human nature, by focusing on those who are famous and prey on their weaknesses.
For Those Who Are Successful
For those who are successful, their actions because of their higher profile becomes transparent to everyone.
There are usually other factors, which plays a role in the downsides of being successful.
Namely, shame as well as the pressure of continuing or prolonging their success, while everyone hopes they fail.
Once you’ve reached the top of your pinnacle, you’re then faced with the added expectations of others. If you fail, they somehow revel in it.
The Upkeep That’s Needed
The stress points are not about guilt but rather more about the shame. The attempt to not become a failure, once you’ve succeeded.
The responsibility which they have on attempting to keep everyone else thinking highly of them, while attempting to live up to their own expectations.
Arrogance and the feeling of invincibility, usually infuses with these positions of success and power, which is usually condoned by the culture that’s in the need of heroes.
But when it comes to these heroes, regardless of how much money they earn, the intricacies of their personal lives, and where they may stumble, that fantasy gives way to unappealing reality.
Is Success Really That Great
Success itself doesn’t usually draw a person towards self-destruction. It simply affords them the possibility, which can lead them towards it.
Being successful might just be the apogee of what they are able to do, and it can only go downhill from there.
It’s a difficult task for the majority of those who achieve success, and are able to manage the challenges and the expectations of their success.
For those who can cope with all of the opportunities which success affords them, rather than being defeated by them, are truly the most successful.