The Measure of Success
TimeWatch Editorial
March 31, 2016
Today we exist in a world in which the measure of success has been changed. That measure is now dependent upon volume rather than value. We are considered successful based upon numbers rather than knowledge. The suitability for employment is assessed by the credentials attained, or the number of positions previously held, not by the quality of the work done in any of those positions of responsibility. In fact there is no means available to truly measure or evaluated such performance. Beauty is cherished if it is external. Weight, height and build are far more important than wisdom, depth or aptitude. Media is filled with just one body type, since those who look any different would not, could not have anything of value to contribute. The whole of society is enslaved by a value system that suggests that whether or not we can afford something does not matter, we must acquire it so that we might be successful. We achieve the job, or career or position that best suits our perceived status, while we deplore the daily engagement of the activities we perform.
This new measure of success has bled into our professional lives. Our actual function is deplorable. Our educational system is not geared to teach us to think, but rather to convince us that we know it all. We seem convinced that graduation is the end rather than the beginning, that a promotion is an entitlement or at the very least a political goal, rather than a reward for attention to the responsibilities we have carried out with reliability. We no longer fail because we refuse to admit our failings. We consider the worst performance on our part to be the fault of someone else, rather than some flaw in our obviously perfect selves since we have graduated with a specific credential, live in a successful environment and look the way we do.
Our politicians blame each other for the problems that exist and with a straight face promise to fix something that they know full well they have not the slightest idea how to, or for that matter the slightest intention to fix. We gather in massive crowds to listen to them consistently lie, we applaud because we have not the foggiest idea what they are talking about, we know only that we want more wages, bigger houses, free healthcare etc, and whoever will promise us that, we support. A few years pass by, we are then disappointed and disaffected, and in the next election, we turn out to angrily throw the bums out. We elect a new set of bums, and the cycle continues. We study nothing, learn nothing, because of the massive credit we have built up we literally own nothing. But what is intensely worse is that we teach our children to study nothing, learn nothing, to build a tower of massive credit larger than our own, so that they will ultimately own less than nothing. All the while, those who make those tremendous promises so that we might stand on line for hours and caucus and vote for them, they seem to do quite well, thank you very much! We never learn, because we prefer not to.
Perhaps a reversal to another measure of success is what we need. A simple lifestyle that demand that we learn how to think, how to properly evaluate the world around us, to find joy in learning how to accomplish the simple things in life, to avoid the tragedy of debt, to learn how to be independent and not be seduced into buying things that we certainly do not need, and will not use. Perhaps then, our children might just learn to think, to make the right choices based upon our example and find joy in the simple pleasures of life.
Cameron A. Bowen
