The Most Deceptive Word in the World. So Many Fall for It

What Is Success, Really?

Each of us intuitively “knows” what success is—at least until we try to define it seriously. Is it the number of zeroes in a bank account, a prestigious job title in an email signature, a smile on your face, or perhaps a peaceful night’s sleep? What if, for one person, success means a corporate promotion, while for another it means the courage to walk away from that very same corporation? And can we honestly say that one of those achievements is greater than the other?

There is no single answer to those questions, because success is not a fact. It is an experience. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, stands as a perfect example of what society tends to recognise as objective success. He rises from poverty to wealth, throws lavish parties at his mansion on Long Island and surrounds himself with luxury and beauty. From the outside, everything looks ideal: money, status, women and cars. For most people around him, Gatsby has succeeded. He seems to embody the American Dream.

Can Success Exist Without Happiness?

But Fitzgerald exposes the emptiness of that definition with brutal clarity. Wealth brings Gatsby neither happiness nor fulfilment. On the contrary, it makes him lonely and tragic:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Great Gatsby is the story of a man who gathered all the outward signs of success and still failed to attain what he truly desired: real love and inner peace. Fitzgerald suggests, then, that success cannot be measured objectively. A person may “win” by social standards and still lose their own life.

External success—even at its highest level—is not the same as happiness. As Fitzgerald implies, you can appear victorious in the eyes of others and remain the unhappiest person in your own.

Can Less Mean More?

At the opposite pole stands Henry David Thoreau, who does the exact reverse of Gatsby. In Walden; or, Life in the Woods, he willingly gives up the usual signs of success—career stability and comfort—and moves into a small cabin by a pond. For the inhabitants of Concord, he looks like a symbol of failure: a man without ambition, property or social position. He himself, however, sees that “failure” as his greatest victory. He chooses simplicity, silence, contact with nature and a deliberate way of living. He does not want to chase what others call success. He wants to live for real:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

For Thoreau, success means inner fulfilment and happiness. It means the daily experience of presence, awareness and freedom from social expectations. What the world calls failure—no career, no money, no visible achievements—he sees as victory over illusion. For him, a happy and fulfilled life is the only thing that truly matters. In his view, the answer to what is success shifts from the field of “what have I achieved?” to “am I living in the way I believe is right?”

What Is Success for You?

Both Fitzgerald and Thoreau suggest that success cannot be measured objectively. Gatsby has almost everything that mass culture associates with the word, yet he is unhappy, unfulfilled and profoundly alone. Thoreau shows that a person can reject “objective” success and still discover real fulfilment.

In the end, what is success turns out to be, to a large extent, a matter of perspective: the goals we set ourselves, the values we place highest, and whether our everyday lives remain consistent with them. Each of us writes our own definition of success. For one person, it will mean quiet work, closeness to nature and small daily joys. For another, it will mean the pursuit of a great dream, even if that dream ends in loneliness.

In a world that constantly tells us to “be more,” it is worth remembering that real success does not come from the outside. It comes when we stop comparing ourselves with other people’s measures and begin listening to ourselves. Is a happy and fulfilled life a success? For Thoreau, yes. For Gatsby, not necessarily. There is no single objective answer to the question what is success. That is exactly why each of us must ask it for ourselves—and answer it for ourselves.

Read this article in Polish: Najbardziej oszukańcze słowo świata. Wielu się na to nabiera