Carolina Kluft, a Swedish athlete once said “Success for me is not to have all the medals. Success for me is to always do your best and try to develop and get better at every event.” We often hear these words from our parents that in order for us to be successful in life and have a good future is that we need to have high grades in school and always receive medals at the end of each school year. Our parents may have points or views to consider where at some point it is true that in order for us to have a good job in the future is that we need to have good grades at school. However, people are lured to the old and irrational system that the measure of success is solely only getting big grades or having meals at school. The medals that we usually get at school can be gold, silver, or bronze, but most of the time we are really aiming for a gold medal. As expensive or prestigious as it may sound to receive a gold medal, is this really a measure of success or does it really define us? Are medals really required to have a better future? My stand or position about this issue is that medals are neither a measure of success nor a definition of our personality as an individual. It does not reflect who we will become in the future and what jobs we get.
Being successful in life does not always entail that we should be smart, excel at school, or have straight A’s in our transcript of records. Being successful does not also happen only in one night. Just like in any recipe, success has its own ingredients. The best–known ingredients of success know ourselves well, accompanied by hard work, persistence, and determination. According to Corley (2015), in his five-year study of the daily habits of 233 self-made millionaires and 128 individuals at or near poverty he found out that 21% of self-made millionaires were “A” students, 41% of self-made millionaires were “B” students, 29% of self-made millionaires were “C” students and 7% of self-made millionaires were below average students. Seventy-seven percent of the self-made millionaires in his study were not exceptional students. In fact, more than a third underperformed academically. Most of the time, the definition of success is bounded only in academic settings. There is really a high correlation between having a high IQ to be academically successful, but success in life does not come easy. It is designed to have obstacles, failures, and mistakes. Success requires persistence, mental toughness, and emotional toughness in overcoming these pitfalls. Its pursuit pushes you to the edge emotionally and physically.
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Every individual is different from others. Identical twins may look like each other, but their personality differs. One may be good at something and the other is not capable of doing it and vice-versa. According to Howard Gardner, Professor of Education in Education at Harvard University, he said that all individuals are smart and excel in their own ways. His theory of multiple intelligence states that all individuals have their own way of being smart or intelligent and knowing the type of intelligence they have may likely influence them to succeed in a field where they are likely good at. Our traditional perception of being smart is limited to the idea of just being good at various subjects at school like being good at solving mathematical problems, and physics equations; being good at memorizing complex terms, or being good at grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc. However, intelligence is not only limited to the things that we thought of. Howard Gardner states that we account for having eight (8) types of intelligence namely: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Knowing what we are good at makes one be successful in our chosen field. Let's say you are an individual who has a high interpersonal intelligence this means that you will likely be successful in fields related t relating with other persons like counselors, managers, teachers, etc. Defining ourselves by assessing ourselves where are we good at is already a form of success.
From the moment that we are introduced to school, learned lessons from classes, and participated in any class activities, we begin to understand that traditional parents and the traditional system of society have expectations and demands from us. This traditional system expects us that while we are in school, we must get good grades, excel in academic matters, or even receive medals at the end of each school year so that we will have a bright future ahead of us. As daunting and challenging as it may seem to have this kind of pressure for an individual living in a traditional system, getting good grades and receiving medals meets their expectations. However, some students are living a life full of miseries, expectations to meet, and too much competition to the point that the competition is not healthy anymore. George Herbert Mead, a sociologist postulated that the self develops in 3 stages: The preparation Stage, the Play Stage, and the Game Stage. He said that there are expectations set at every stage. Getting good grades, having an exemplary performance at school, and being successful in life are part of the game stage. Having these expectations set for us is part of development. If we cannot meet the expectations set to us, it does not mean that we are failures and does neither define ourselves nor what will our future be, but it does not also mean that we should settle for less and not strive hard. We may not meet all the expectations imposed on us, but we know in ourselves that we did our best. This particular action is already a part of the success and it already tells something about yourself.
Therefore, success comes in many forms. The traditional belief of success may implore having medals or having an exemplary performance academically, but it does not define you, or your future, and does not correlate with being successful in life. Success does not happen only overnight. It requires us to have the required persistence, mental toughness, and emotional toughness in overcoming these pitfalls. Every individual is unique and intelligent in their own way. There is no individual who is not intelligent. Success comes in the form of knowing ourselves well, accompanied by hard work, persistence, and determination. It is understood that at every stage of our lives, there are expectations that need to be met. However, not meeting all the expectations does not mean you are a failure. Success also comes in the form of doing your best in every situation and it tells something about you. Life is destined to be difficult and only people who can survive the test of life and learn from it are the real successful individual.
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