[Closed] What is success? What makes you happy?

wife, kids, dog, bike, beer make me happy.
i am a good dad, good husband, and a good bloke, i am successful.

I think Ton nails it tbh

We will all have our own variations of that theme but it's about right.

Positional and monetary gain as a definition of success. For me that would be fools gold.

I have no wife, kids, dog or job.
I have no financial worries, own 2 very nice places and enjoy live.
I am very happy. I do what I want, when I want.

Coke and hookers.

Success is being happy, comfortable and content in your day to day life (at work and at home).

It's a moving goalpost. At some points it is achieving things that other haven't done, at other points in life it's being in a place without worry, at other points it is being way outside your comfort zone

Probably most important is not regretting having not gone for something when the chance came up

Winning arguments on the interent and good spelling

Ton has it for me. Success is how happy you are. I'm more happy now, even though I don't have as much disposable income as I did before wreckerjnr arrived.
Approval and/or oneupmanship makes some people happy. I feel sorry for them.

Winning arguments on the interent and good spelling

The odd full stop wouldn't go amiss.

Freedom from desire. Until one reaches that point, one cannot be truly happy.

Starts argument about full stops.......

Interesting to think about Fools Gold.....but how many us chase a career which by default measures success in terms of high up the greasy pole you can get and what salary we get, which in turn supports buying shiny trinkets which we covet. From house to car to watch to bike to Montblanc pen to....you get the idea.

Personally I have never considered I've had a career....simply a range of different job roles within which I've gained knowledge, experience and over time increased salary and responsibility. Don't know if that is success, but it has given choice. Would not want to lose that.

What makes me happy? Walk round the local field with the hound who then decided I was fair prey and we ended up play fighting and chasing each other. My daughter talking some absolute nonsense which made me laugh. Sitting on a sofa with my wife and hound enjoying a beer after little Miss has gone to bed. Watching DIY SOS and crying. Tomorrow is a whole new day.

Success?
When I was young nobody told me what it took me another 20-30 years to work out and achieve. Success isn't earning lot of money to me. I've had well paid jobs and been bored shitless all week.
I used to joke about what I'd do if I ever got the chance, never imagining I ever would. But I did. And I did what I said I'd do.
I now have a job I love, I leave in the morning knowing I'm going to be working hard but loving it. And that's filled the unhappy gap I had before.
I have a roof over my head, a wonderful wife who I love more than I ever thought possible and a few bikes to ride. I sleep soundly and have no worries in the world. That's my success. 🙂

**** success. **** material wealth. **** status. I'm poor and happy. Got no assets or prospects. But life is good.

Spend more time than most dads do with their kids. And my kids are smart and intelligent as a result. As long as they're happy and turn out well, I'll die happy. My success means nothing compared to their happiness.

Living my life by my own standards rather than anyone else's
Riding bikes
Being nice to people
Walking
Sunshine
Nice people

We can all improve, and have regrets over what we haven't achieved. It's a balance of home, family, work and personal stuff isn't it - achievements or an ongoing feeling of goodness. I'm not the best family person in the world but family is happy and cohesive - at least I think it is! At work I've achieved - I think - quite a lot and now am doing stuff I enjoy, freelance, that allows me a great deal of flexibility. Still have good health (as much as one can at 52, but I look at bulk of my peers and think, 'Yup".

But always room for improvement.

Solving a problem successfully makes me happy, helping to solve someone else's problem makes me even happier.

Having enough to eat out now and then, go to gigs, buy bike bits when i really need them
Having enough time to ride bikes, walk, go on holiday.

Success IS being happy, i enjoy being in my wife's company, got a fantastic relationship with my daughter, she's coming home from uni this wkend, i'm bloody excited, we're going climbing, rollerblading and will be blasting around the countryside in my modest sports car.
I am 52 and have never earned more than £18k a year,but never had depts apart from mortgage, cutting your cloth and all that, but am as happy as a pig in s***.
Be HAPPY, what is the alternative?

Not sure about success, but what makes me happy is hearing my wife singing to herself downstairs.
If she's happy enough to be singing, then everything's good in my world.

The lad, not yet 5, asked his mum, when she was tucking him into bed last week....

"Who's the player who scores lots of goals against Arsenal?" ... "Gazza" she replied (l had been watching 50 Greatest Moments of the Fa Cup, a couple of days before and had made him watch the Gazza bender from the '91 semi final )....

"l'm going to dream about being him", the lad said ...

Job done.

COYS

Ive learned that dwelling on the past (its been and gone) and worrying about the future (what ifs) made me unhappy. So Learning to be present and not be caught up in silly thoughts made me much happier. (I did suffer from anxiety though).

Notice how many times a day your thoughts take you into the past or some what ifs in the future, and the next thing fifteen minutes has passed whilst you have been trying to reason or resolve this thought.

Personally, money hasnt given me happiness, yes its nice, but I had some wonderful times when a poor student.

Enjoying the things that money can't buy

[b]What is success? What makes you happy?[/b]

I am not successful nor happy at the moment so any improvement will ease my current situation ... seriously.

😐

Ex 20:2-17 helps

Everything I do is for my family.
Like loddrik, I get to spend more than the average amount of time with my children and they seem to be all the better for it.
Material wealth doesn't interest me over and above having a roof over our heads...a car that can shuttle us around and a bike.
Anything else is a bonus.

being alive makes me happy, I don't reckon I'll be happy when I stop doing that. 😆

The lad, not yet 5, asked his mum, when she was tucking him into bed last week....

"Who's the player who scores lots of goals against Arsenal?" ... "Gazza" she replied (l had been watching 50 Greatest Moments of the Fa Cup, a couple of days before and had made him watch the Gazza bender from the '91 semi final )....

"l'm going to dream about being him", the lad said ...

Job done.

COYS

Gazza. a deeply troubled alcoholic, addiction issues, mental illness, failed father and husband.
😯 A great role model.

Life is what you make of it. We have a great marriage and sufficient money. We are very blessed.

Not going to win the lottery as we don't buy tickets. £xx millions would be nice but not really necessary.

I heard a really interesting thought recently - don't think 'why me?', but 'why not me?' when it comes to being successful.

Easy to say, I know!

Dynasty.

Everything else is for hippies

The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

deadlydarcy - Member

Freedom from desire.

Having no money, no power, no fame, no money, but strong beliefs.

You're all a bunch of nancies, that or my psychological makeup is closer to Ghengis Khan than I care to believe. Freedom from desire? Pfffft

@Northwind

One would rather see the world run by men who set their hearts on toys but are accessible to pity, than by men animated by lofty ideals whose dedication makes them ruthless. In the chemistry of man's soul, almost all noble attributes — courage, honor, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc. — can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

Screw y'all.

Freedom from desire.

I'm going with a variant along the lines of "freedom from any desires that cannot forseeably be satisfied without excessive hassle".

At present, earnings exceed outgoings by a factor of 5, and I don't work especially hard. I get to do what I want (within the constraints of a working week) now, and if it stays this easy I'll be able to become Stoner in about 5 years' time.

Also to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women, obvs.

🙂

It's not something you can write down, it's not the same for everyone but I think it has to be a feeling you get inside, you know when you do and you don't feel the need to tell everyone else or judge them by your standards.

Happy? People, relationships, activities with flow, community, digging, travel, food and booze, music

Unhappy: shopping, aggression, selfishness, competitive comparisons, money worries, car repairs, intrusive noise

Loving the Conan references!

I'm happiest with my family, even when they drive me nuts. When they drive me nuts I go and get happy with a bike ride.

Work just pays for it.

"Let no man call himself happy until he carries his happiness into the grave " but I would not take life advise from Oedipus.

For me success is being happy now having a wife and son who I love and who love me enough income to put a roof over our heads and food we enjoy in our stomachs . I also have the luxury of a job that I am competent at that archives something I believe to be of values and at which some peers whose opinion I value acknowledge my abilities.. Pay is naff though.

brooess - Member

Living my life by my own standards rather than anyone else's
Riding bikes
Being nice to people
Walking
Sunshine
Nice people

This and a dog pretty much covers it for me i think.

To make love to a different beautiful woman every night?

Scratch that, far too much effort (or money I suppose).

I'm going to go with pride.

cats make me happy. i don't have any of my own right now. my life is shit.

When one of my daughters gives me a hug and says 'I love you daddy'.

You can take the rest.

I used to strive to be exceptional at my job. Worked long hours, put lots of effort in, took on lots of extra duties without being asked...

Then I realised that despite my hard work, your boss just sees you as another worker, and when it comes time for a company to do you a favour, instead of you always doing it a favour (working extra hours etc...) you get the same treatment as the guy who tosses it off all day and doesn't seem to take work terribly seriously.

So work is work now, I do what I'm contracted to do and nothing more. I'm less stressed and happier and look forward to home time each day.

There's more important things than work...

Money makes me happy. Why?....well its because if I have enough money, to pay my bills, pay for a few hols for me and my family and live a half decent life, then I am content.

If I don't have any money, then I worry and if I worry, I am not happy. I don't crave anything more than what I have, but money keeps everything moving along nicely.

Millions of ££££££££ would make me happy!

I'm not happy as I have -£100000000

I'm not sure this is indicative of my opinion, but I find it quite bizarre how so many have been able to quickly state " this, this and this" makes me happy/successful.

I can't think what would make me unequivocally happy or successful. Thing make me happy from time to time - for example my kids, successes in my sport/hobby, success in work. But, those things also make me sad / a failure from time to time - for example upset or injured kids, not succeeding my sport/hobby and being bored at work.

I've been playing with mindfulness (I have lapsed a bit recently) and can agree with some of the above, that living in the moment, not being sucked into others anger or dispair, not living the world of the "two arrows" does lift my moood/remove some stress and anxiety.

My situations are lined with a mixture of both. For example, we have half the money to create the Kitchen we want. But in total it seems like too much money to throw into a kitchen, yet we don't want to accept less - vis a vis no progress, neither happy or unhappy just frustrated. We are been treated to a stunning luxury holiday in August by the in laws - I should be really happy, but its an 8 hour flight, and I'm scared of flying, 16 hours in total of terror bookending it. I have a good well paid job, but its become mundane.

I can't help thinking that my definition of success and happiness would come down to living in some kind of bubble by myself whereby I could do all the things I want to, but stop at the point of any attritional outcomes they cause - which feels lonley and quite sad at the same time. So actually that doesnt work either.

I don't know maybe I need to see a psych, everyday is an up or down for me. 😐

I think a truly successful person is someone who desires the welfare of other people, especially people who they have no family or kinship ties to. So people practicing service of some kind or other.
I've known plenty of "successful" people in today's terms - rich, powerful, intelligent - but I think we use such achievements to try and fill a void inside of us which can only truly be filled through acts of empathy and to a certain extent self-sacrifice.
I should point out that in these terms, I am not a successful person, but I have a better idea of where I should be going in the future.

When all the boys sleep in till 7am, it's the little things.

Ask me again in 10 days when this term is over, and I have managed to hold onto my sanity.

Hmm, success is meaningless in and of itself because it requires external benchmarks. This means it is relative to those on the planet now, those who have gone and those who will come. Happiness on the other hand has correlate goings-on in the brain that can be verified against self-reporting (i.e. "do you feel happy"). Personally, for me, it has to do with movement and being in the mix (some might say "flow"). Often this has to do with speed and immersion (that comes with amazing singletrack and jumps), roadying (repetition of motion, breathing and absence of thought), but also my job (which as an academic involves joining up dots and seeing things differently), and home life where I am grounded with my partner and have a great place to live. 🙂

I like that saxabar.

So in reality what you are saying is that its a state of mind, permeated by s series of outside events which are in fact, either ever changing but often come together to form the feeling on "happiness" or "success" rather than one long continuous concept?

In mindfulness, happiness is described as not being "unhappy". Therefore by definition the removal of all things that obstruct the state of mind to which you refer, leaving only happiness. The object of mindfulness is not to be happy, but to not be unhappy, which is a difference in concept.

Its reminded me of one of the key values which I'd not only forgotton, but have actually ignored in my previous post earlier; that in that post you can actually see that I'm finding and focusing on reasons to be unhappy. Damn!

I agree with Twinw4ll, if you are happy, then you are sucessful.

The Americans have it as an inalienable right: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

As long as you don't get your kicks from kicking puppies, have at it.

Benz, unfortunately for you Aberdeen is a soul sucking horror show. I get out of there as fast as humanly possible when i land.

I have a very good mate who is a drilling engineer for a very large firm (no names 🙂 ) and currently he is the most miserable person i have ever met. He chased this job and career but it was not solely financial driven. He loves his job and all the challenges that come with it. What is slowly killing him is having to deal daily with the poison of the companies management. Everyone is out for number 1, chasing that final salary position before they retire and back stabbing at every turn. How a company operates like that is beyond me.

He is getting out. I cant say much on here but his plans have him leaving that all behind . I dont think his health would last much longer either.

So in reality what you are saying is that its a state of mind

I guess, but I'd add that it's a state of the brain too as mind is inextricably connected with brain/body.

[...] events which ... come together to form the feeling on "happiness" or "success" rather than one long continuous concept?

A tentative yes to this, as I don't think happiness is a concept or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Perhaps it is better thought of as an arrangement of parts of the self in relation to environment?

In mindfulness, happiness is described as not being "unhappy". Therefore by definition the removal of all things that obstruct the state of mind to which you refer, leaving only happiness.

Maybe, but one person's niggle or depressingly insurmountable challenge is the reason for others to get out of bed. I think this goes back to the point above arrangements of brain/mind and interactions with environment. Not sure about happy as not being unhappy. Word play?

A nice big poo, really!

After a year and a half of various meds that changed my normally functional bowels into an unpredictable, oversize hedgehog factory, this flippant remark is only half serious...

trustyrusty is the truth sayer

Agree with the posters above emphasising the equilibrium aspect to happiness.
Happiness as a static state of being doesn't exist outside of infant school and mental institutions. It's something that arises out of opposing feelings being in the right balance.

Equilibrium doesn't mean 50:50, either - it can be way over to one side or the other.

I'm climbing Mount Mulcahen on next Tuesday week, I expect I'll feel happy about that. For a short while...