k_def_of_success

See also ..

• [20]peaceful leisure@waterfront park as the most similar reflection, which started with a different question.
• 4 def@success

Perhaps the telltale sign of a hitherto successful life (successE) is a sense of carefree satisfaction. I’m currently satisfied with my simple, modest, well-cushioned life. There’s not something missing, or something unwanted like pains, stressors, or FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

What counts as a successful life is primarily based on a personal definition. By my definition of “success”, I have achieved what I wanted by this stage of my life. 想要的, 都达到了。Some of my goals are needs, and the rest are aspirations.

• personal health — a fundamental need. Some people are born with health conditions, and they can still successfully managing their conditions.
• family — a fundamental need in my view, not a universal view. Some people chose a single life. Together with my wife, I have built a fairly cohesive family, overflowing with affection.
• [e] life partner — I dreamed of a beautiful wife and hoped for a long-lasting marriage. My marriage turned out to be quite meaningful, enriching, rewarding and satisfying, better than I hoped.
• kids — I hoped to have one or more healthy kids. I also wished to have beautiful and (not necessarily academically) smart kids. I put in huge effort to ensure they grow up fine.
  • As to their academic achievements, it’s a long term desire. I would consider myself successful if we set a realistic target for them, and I help them put in a good effort. Result is mostly their success (or failure), not my success (or failure).
• home ownership — In most countries owning a home would be a common aspiration, but Singapore citizens consider it a common need.
• [e] affordable healthcare — a common need. Beyond my dreams, I have  reached this goal (miraculously) ahead of time by taking up Singapore citizenship and selecting low-cost Shield plans. Singapore is far from a role model system, but decent in my experience. Meeting the same need in another country might be harder.
• stable career — a common aspiration. My (and wife’s) chosen domain is growing and dynamic. My (and wife’s) skillset is currently in-demand and fairly marketable long term. As a consequence, our household salary level is a few times more than enough for our family burn rate. Most people dare not feel too comfortable (comfort zone, complacent) about job security, and I feel slightly more optimistic than them. Yet my sense of success is only partially based on this “slightly more” optimistic sentiment.
• retirement planning — (and long-horizon cashflow planning). I consider it a common “need” to have adequate cash flow at least 2 years out, and live without constant worry about cash flow for the next 3-10 years.
  • college funding — is the twin sister of retirement planning, and a common aspiration. Probably requires $300k – 600k for my kids. Am not “successful” in planning it but I feel confident I can send my kids to affordable colleges without regret or financial burden. A top private university is Not my aspiration.
• healthy lifestyle — a common aspiration. Many people in my circle want to develop wellness habits and have time to keep them up. Most of us fail, because it actually is extremely hard. I’m more successful than most people around me. My friend Zeng said most guys above 45 have belly fat.
• education achievements — A common aspiration. As a student, I always wanted top grades and reputable college degrees. I achieved success by earning a prestigious degree from UChicago. National U of Singapore, where I earned my bachelor’s, is also a top-rated university ranked top 3 in Asia and top 30 globally.
• [e] short, comfortable commute — an uncommon desire. Thanks to my skillset I can choose where to work. I now have one of the best commutes of my life. On the train I can read or use my laptop every day.
• hobbies — a fundamental desire. My dad wants to have more hobbies like my mom has. I have rather few hobbies — exercise, blogging, movies, reading history/science… and technical self-learning. Yoga and piano might become hobbies, I hope. These hobbies make for an enriched life.
• friends and support network — a common need. My dad has very few friends left and he feels lonely. Friendship is less important to me, but I have successfully maintained a small circle of friends, and we support each other through the ups and downs. Many of them understand my situation and confirm my self-assessment of “success”. They know I may not be successful as a manager, and my boy may not be an academic kid.

So I don’t need to be a millionaire or big manager to be a success. My dad aspired to produce valuable research and leave a legacy. He is successful in terms of successL. I don’t need to be rich or celebrated. I can be a success without those because those are not my aspirations for the last 10 years.

A 30 year old tech worker in Beijing considers himself unsuccessful because a “decent” home typically costs RMB 5 million to USD 1 million, and his USD 60k salary (月薪 3万五) is insufficient. His aspiration makes him unsuccessful. Essentially, he is disqualified to join this exclusive Beijing home-owners’ club. Instead, if he opts for renting, then his salary would make for a comfortable life, perhaps a sense of self-esteem and successE.

Most of my goals are not entirely “personal” goals, but rather fundamental human needs, or common aspirations. For example, it would be self-delusion to rate myself a success if I hit recurring cashflow difficulties or job losses. However, at a deeper level success is always achieved and measured case by case, taking into account the specific circumstances. For example,

• A divorcee can be a success if she takes responsibility of her bad choice, does her best to assess (or rescue) the marriage, and decisively end it so as to move on.
• A failed investor can be a success if he cuts loss earlier than others and survive a market decline with the least amount of loss.
• A dollar millionaire in a high-cost country may have a lower quality of life (due to healthcare cost, housing cost, school cost) than a Malaysia friend (perhaps someone in a smaller town) without a million dollars. So a million dollars in your bank doesn’t automatically make you a bigger success than the Malaysian, in terms of cash flow situation.
• A parent with kids in average schools, with no hope for a community college, can be a successful parent, even if her kids don’t go on to land high-paying jobs. The parent may have overcome the odds as a single parent, or with health conditions. Every family has its challenges. If the kids puts in effort, and don’t become a problem kid, then we parents have done a decent job, perhaps a successful (successZ) job.

Therefore, I believe it is invalid and unfair to judge a person’s success by a universal yardstick.

— relative importance of each goal
In the mass media and among the Chinese middle class that I know, the vague notion (not a detailed definition) of “success” is disproportionately represented by household income percentile, educational credentials, leadership position, personal assets. But success also means satisfaction with one’s life. Satisfaction is fundamentally personal, so something essential to me (commute!) may be unimportant to you. In some people’s mind, rewarding hobbies are more important than personal network, family harmony is more important than academic kids. Some don’t mind a series of divorces — it could be demonstrate he/she is in-demand. Some don’t mind a shorter-than-average lifespan /punctuated/ by severe illnesses, as long as they don’t suffer too much before dying. PER with Duration Neglect.

In my “components” of success, the importance of self-effectiveness far outweighs interpersonal effectiveness and organizational effectiveness (including leadership). My dad is a role model. I’m not really a success in terms of leadership, friendship, influence etc, but those are not my aspirations and not my strengths.

—  Q3: why I believe most of my peers feel less successful?
Q3b (a related question): Suppose we screen my thousands of peers using my list of goals/components. As joked about in G4 Personal advantages: Revealed over15Y #byHalf, with each criteria, the remaining “percentage” drops by half ?. Why?

• Answer #1: their goals are more comparison-based (FOMO) such as academic kids. My List of goals/components are modest if measured by comparison with the rich.
• Answer: blessing — admittedly a big factor in my favor.
• Answer: effort — last but not least, a key part of the definition of successZ is “achieving”. Reaching all your goals by luck or inheritance, without a huge effort, is not success. Wherever an item in my list above requires only a mediocre/moderate effort, I will mark it with [e]. See also locus@control

— Q4: why I feel satisfied more often than my peers? “Happiness” is more about xpSelf; “Fulfillment” is more like life-long; “Success” is more about well-defined goals.
Historically, ffree was the seed of this recurring sentiment, but is no longer the only fountainhead. Instead, wellness, satisfying job, bonding with kids/wife, … are growing but I will skip component_analysis. Component_analysis .. is the focus in many blogposts, not in this question.

The rmSelf is the primary judge  but my U-index (by xpSelf)  has been very good in recent years i.e. most of the time I feel _happy_ and sometimes highly satisfied.

A: introspective blogg .. (meditation). My peers don’t look inside long and deep, so they don’t feel and believe the good time they live in. I guess in terms of hours spent blogg about positive evaluations, I’m clearly in the 1st percentile of heavy bloggers. I need to blog so much because the satisfaction is surreal and I constantly check “ain’t-dreaming”. See why SO much analysis@ffree, Defense,carefree #Inception

A: visible benchmarks .. my peers, including my wife, tend to feel unsatisfied when they focus on top schools, brank, home size, car brand … (No Component_analysis here).
I am also affected by the benchmarks, but am more philosophical, more mellow .. (see the blogposts on harmony). Reflected in U-index (D.Kahneman)

A: successE, successZ are more important to me; whereas successC (exclub++) is more important to my peers.

— compare to my dad. He is the very best in his field, but he knows his influence is not so wide, his value not so great, his legacy will not last very long. Limited successL.
In comparison, I have reached ffree fairly early, in my late 20’s when I quite my full time job. Reached again after overseas rental started in my early 40’s as described to Kyle. Then the mvea and mlp jobs became carefree, and my SGD non-CPF brbr increased way past 2.0.

Am I more successful than him? No simple conclusion.. depends on what your priorities, goals, and the def@success.

— My office building security manager told me “你是成功的人士“. It got me thinking what made him say that. Perhaps my daily workout routine; My UChicago T-shirt