The Word Success: The Definition Of Success

When thinking of the word “success” people tend to think of materialistic objects that one can buy with copious amounts of money. In reality, “success” actually involves the non-materialistic concepts such as completion of goals. To perceive this idea, we must ask ourselves, “Can failure ever result in success?” “Success” is a noun that is defined as “the fact or achieving wealth, respect or fame” (Merriam-Webster). Most of us wonder how we become successful individuals, and the term “failure” tends to escape our definition of “success”; however, failure is one of the main driving forces for the end result of success. The concrete definition of “success” comes from the Latin verb “succedere” meaning “come close after.” Historically speaking

My roommate said that to her, “success” meant “an accomplishment” (Mary Robles). Here, Mary is looking at the positive aspects of the word success, stating that something good is bound to emerge from success. My two friends are quoted as using “success” for “when you have accomplished all of the goals you had for yourself” (Grace Ireland). Or “when you are satisfied/ the happiest with a goal that you put effort towards” (Samantha Schmidt). As quoted, Grace and Samantha have a similar definition like Mary but the main difference here being that the accomplishments are specifically goals. Although both Grace and Samantha use the word “success” to mean achieving a goal, I use “success” to mean the knowledge gained from learning from a failure. Not everyone has the same definition of success. As Pablo Picasso once said, “Action is the foundational key to all success”. Picasso’s definition of success is one that makes sense to me because hoping for success is only an idea with no method to carry it out. Being through in planning out how to become successful will help success become achievable like a

This is why we need to understand what it means to be a success. As stated in the book The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dörner analyzes the importance of failure on success stating, “If success comes too easily, the game is no fun. If success is impossible, the game is too frustrating” (Dörner 61). Dörner uses “success” as a metaphor for a game, and failure is supposed to aid in the ability for a goal to work properly. What I mean by failure is putting effort into learning and learning from the mistakes. Lisa points to the idea she calls, “smart but not trying”, suggesting that an intelligent individual might not do well in school, whereas a person who has not put much effort into school cheats and thus receives high grades (Nunn 32). Here, I believe failure is measured by the amount of effort put into a task. I think putting a lot of effort into something and not getting the result wanted automatically makes that a success because attempt was made. Another key idea to success is preparing for failure. In his book Success through Failure: the paradox of design, Henry Petroski writes that by “anticipating and identifying how a design can fail—or even just be[ing] perceived to fail—is the first step in making it a success” (Petroski 51). Proactively working to fix failure before it happens is a definite way to be closer to success. Petroski also writes on how to view failures in terms of success.