Success not the way to happiness

The recent experience of applying to law schools and now trying to decide where to go has brought back memories of the college application process. One of the dilemmas I faced back then was deciding what would be most important to me -- should I go some place where I would have a better shot at individual advancement or one where social development was emphasized?\nAs a high school senior, it was pretty obvious I should go to a school where I would have the best chance of distinguishing myself, and I based many of my actions as an undergraduate on this principle. \nBasing our decisions on the tangible results we expect to see -- the most prestigious school or the honor with the biggest name -- is a very dangerous way to measure how successful our lives have been. Living this way marginalizes one critical aspect of our lives -- how we interact with the society around us.\nAfter having a number of experiences overseas, I am even more convinced of the need for Americans in particular to change their attitudes from ones that value individual success above all else to ones that have a greater appreciation for all that is enriching around us.\nAt many points in our lives, we are told what it means to be successful. There are clear, tangible markers of success, like the size of our paycheck, awards we have won, the name of the school we went to or the firm we work in. We are told it is good to achieve as many of these status symbols as possible.\nBut this kind of unfettered pursuit for individual distinction can be very dangerous. In his book, "Pursuit of Loneliness," Philip Slater writes a scathing critique of what he sees in America's competitive, individualistic society. He writes of the loss of oneself that is experienced as we become caught up in the frenzied invidiousness of our economic system, and he shrewdly writes, "The competitive life is a lonely one and its satisfactions short-lived, for each race leads only to a new one."\nIt is this type of society that encourages people to continue to see success in terms of a checklist of awards. It creates people who think it is okay to assume an individual would always decide to go to an Ivy League school over a state school and people who assume that all Rhodes Scholars are perfect. But labeling success in this way is deceptive and does a disservice to those who would find fulfillment in other ways.\nI have been fortunate enough to experience a certain amount of individual successes throughout my undergraduate career. However, these achievements have not been the greatest moments of my life like I would have expected them to be. And each time one victory has been achieved, there is a kind of hollowness as I realize it is now time to move on to a new competition.\nThe greatest moments of my life have been those late night conversations with a close friend, deepening an existing relationship, the wonderment of exploring a foreign country or engaging in an artistic endeavor. All of these experiences have required going outside myself and making myself part of the world around me.\nLikewise, the individuals I know who are the most fulfilled are not the ones who have the most prizes or have accumulated the most money. I have known a number of people who have gone to the most prestigious schools and won the most awards, and I can safely say that alone should not be the determinant for what it means to live a successful life. I am most intrigued and inspired by those people who have taken to enriching their lives by engaging in the world around them. \nThose who inspire me are the people who take a year off to work as a human rights monitor in Indonesia, the student who works on an Indian reservation, the friend who has accumulated a store of random knowledge from a lifetime of reading, the people who are engaged in the act of creating and those who learn an obscure language.\nUnlike an honor that awards the individual's success over that of others, these types of activities engage us with the world around us and make that world part of our lives. I won't claim to be unhappy with the individual successes I have had, and I don't expect people to be able to completely smother their individual competitive tendencies. Nor do I think they should try to do so.\nHowever, if I had the chance to do it over again differently, I probably would. I would take more time to get to know other people, learn a new language or craft and travel as much as possible. Individual success should not be the driving force behind all of our actions. Rather, these kinds of successes should come as a side effect of living a life that is constantly being enriched by and engaged with the world around us.