There are countless alternatives and everybody has to find what that means for them. For example I have no real achievements to speak of. Sure, you could look at my paycheck and say “that person successful”. You could look at where I live and say “you’re successful”. You could look at where I vacation and say “you’re successful”. But what does that mean? It might mean something to you because you attribute some kind of value to it, but I don’t. My self-worth is attached to how I treat others (or how I don’t), how I view the world, how I will leave it when I’m gone and the things I tried to do before ending up as fish or worm-chow.
If you feel like you have to live up to some kind of metric of success setup by other people, that’s fine. I hope that makes you happy. It wouldn’t make me happy, but I’m not you.
I don’t feel like I have to live up to some arbitrary metric of success set up by others. I am aware of the fact that others will be interested in knowing me based on my achievements. For example, if I have the achievement “earn enough money to support myself”, other people will want to be around me than would otherwise. These are nice people whose company I enjoy, so I am going to try to keep earning this achievement.
If I can say “I have run a marathon” or “I placed 3rd in my community chess competition”, these things indicate that I have positive attributes which other people will find attractive, like fitness, consistency, intelligence, and an interest in community events. I also want to spend my time with people who have cultivated these traits - so when someone tells me that they once meditated for 24 hours straight, I am impressed and am more interested in knowing them because I intuit that spending time around them will imbue me with some of that potential. Meanwhile, if someone tells me that they spend their free time watching reality tv reruns, I am less interested in knowing them, because I am not interested in becoming more like them.
I’ve had friend groups where nobody knows which job the other person had. Somebody could’ve been a CEO or a cleaner. It didn’t matter. We went to the same concerts together, hung out in bars and the beach together, had deep political discussions and also shot the shit.
At no point did I think “wow, if this person hadn’t told me they went skydiving, I’d never hang out with them”. We happened to have the same sense of humor, watched some of the same shows, did similar activities, and were open to others vision of the world. I can’t even remember their “achievements”, just that they were nice people to be friends with.
You may require achievements and some mix of attributes you attach to those achievements in order to hang out with people. That’s fine. Not everybody’s the same.
There are countless alternatives and everybody has to find what that means for them. For example I have no real achievements to speak of. Sure, you could look at my paycheck and say “that person successful”. You could look at where I live and say “you’re successful”. You could look at where I vacation and say “you’re successful”. But what does that mean? It might mean something to you because you attribute some kind of value to it, but I don’t. My self-worth is attached to how I treat others (or how I don’t), how I view the world, how I will leave it when I’m gone and the things I tried to do before ending up as fish or worm-chow.
If you feel like you have to live up to some kind of metric of success setup by other people, that’s fine. I hope that makes you happy. It wouldn’t make me happy, but I’m not you.
I don’t feel like I have to live up to some arbitrary metric of success set up by others. I am aware of the fact that others will be interested in knowing me based on my achievements. For example, if I have the achievement “earn enough money to support myself”, other people will want to be around me than would otherwise. These are nice people whose company I enjoy, so I am going to try to keep earning this achievement.
If I can say “I have run a marathon” or “I placed 3rd in my community chess competition”, these things indicate that I have positive attributes which other people will find attractive, like fitness, consistency, intelligence, and an interest in community events. I also want to spend my time with people who have cultivated these traits - so when someone tells me that they once meditated for 24 hours straight, I am impressed and am more interested in knowing them because I intuit that spending time around them will imbue me with some of that potential. Meanwhile, if someone tells me that they spend their free time watching reality tv reruns, I am less interested in knowing them, because I am not interested in becoming more like them.
I’ve had friend groups where nobody knows which job the other person had. Somebody could’ve been a CEO or a cleaner. It didn’t matter. We went to the same concerts together, hung out in bars and the beach together, had deep political discussions and also shot the shit.
At no point did I think “wow, if this person hadn’t told me they went skydiving, I’d never hang out with them”. We happened to have the same sense of humor, watched some of the same shows, did similar activities, and were open to others vision of the world. I can’t even remember their “achievements”, just that they were nice people to be friends with.
You may require achievements and some mix of attributes you attach to those achievements in order to hang out with people. That’s fine. Not everybody’s the same.