My Saturday Shortcuts column on a movement to redefine what a successful life means drew some enthusiastic responses from readers, and a few that were angry.
The column focused largely on a conference called “The Third Metric,” hosted by Arianna Huffington and Mika Brzezinski this month, that was titled “Redefining Success Beyond Wealth Power.”
It’s clear that many people have been thinking about the issue deeply. A number of readers agreed with the premise that it is high time to find a better way to define success than working nonstop and making lots of money.
“People like you and Arianna Huffington, who have a platform to get out this message, give me hope that our culture can reinvent itself and start to celebrate more than just monetary success. Our collective health and well-being depend on it!” e-mailed Paige Guthrie Hodges, who has written and blogged about simple living.
Another reader, Alan Mandel, wrote that “I frequently find myself struggling to resolve inner conflicts about success. On one hand, after 50+ years I have fully internalized the false equivalencies between success and assets such as money, fame and power. These are pervasive messages drummed into the American psyche from birth, and which permeate the media on any given day. On the other hand,.it shouldn’t be that way.”
Others felt the message was somewhat difficult to swallow coming from the already wealthy and successful.
“It strikes me as humorous that Ms. Huffington, who makes a fortune redistributing journalism for which the writers get no pay, sees the future as putting rest areas in a workplace,” e-mailed Monika Gutman, referring to the nap rooms that Ms. Huffington has installed at The Huffington Post.
And a reader who prefers to remain anonymous because he is job-hunting wrote that while he is a fan and reader of The Huffington Post, the participants in events like the Third Metric “are rich, successful, powerful, all the things they now say should no longer be the yardsticks for success — it’s called closing the door behind you once you’re in the club.”
A number of readers said that any discussion of reanalyzing success had to include a discussion about a new labor movement.
As Bonnie Connelly e-mailed: “Teaching provided me with the opportunity for an engaging, worthwhile profession and the time for a filling home life. This was in large part due to the union that worked to assure good working conditions, a fair salary and reasonable hours. With these working conditions home life was manageable and rewarding. The destruction of unions is in large part the cause of the frustration many experience at work; this frustration, of course, impacts home life.”
And on a more philosophical level, quite a few said it was time to stop confusing achievement of success with finding happiness. A reader, Marv Silverman, said a two-liner changed his life.
The quotation, attributed to the comedian Dave Gardner, is: “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/can-the-rich-and-powerful-redefine-life-for-all-of-us/?partner=rss&emc=rss