Task 2 model answer 12: What is success

The measure of success is a subjective issue that some argue is represented by having both money and being successful in one's profession. However, there are many less tangible factors that are better indications of success, as will now be argued.

Primarily, a person can be said to have succeeded in life only if they are, for the majority, happy with their life. This does not necessarily require vast sums of money or even a rewarding job. It could derive from family and friends, from a feeling of being connected to the community around them. To illustrate, a rich person with a successful career cannot be said to be successful if he is lonely.

In addition, success is defined as meeting or exceeding set goals which may have nothing to do with finances or occupations. For example, people who climb mountains or sail solo across the sea. Neither of these challenges are directly linked with a profession or with money, yet meeting personal goals can make a person, by definition, successful.

However, to objectively measure success, wealth and career are two indicators that can be most clearly compared between people, so to that extent they can be considered representative of success. Yet even with the markers, it is difficult to judge what makes a career successful. A lawyer who wins all his cases even though he personally may feel he is supporting guilty people, would perhaps not feel his triumphs to be a success.

To sum up, although money and profession are perhaps easier to quantify as measures of success, they are not as significant as factors such as happiness and the achievement of one's own goals.