The Measure of Success
How do we measure success in this country? Are you only considered successful if you have a high-paying, high-powered job? I’ve been talking with friends and co-workers about what success means since the recent Washington Post article about Cedric Jennings and what’s going on in his life 12 years after A Hope in the Unseen was first published. Hope–this year’s One Maryland One Book selection–chronicles Jenning’s journey from his high school in one of D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods to Brown University.
After we leave high school and go our separate ways, the places we end up professionally run the gamut. Some of us fulfill our childhood dreams and become firemen, lawyers, and fishermen. Others hop from job to job or decide to move in a completely different direction professionally after years of doing the same thing—finding themselves professionally as they come into their own personally. But the bottom line is that we each have our own path to walk, and who is to say what defines success for each of us?
So what do you think? Do we only equate success with the Bigs? Big house, big car, big bank account? Do we place enough value on the contribution one makes in enriching the lives of others through their work? How do you define personal success?
Andrea Lewis is the Project Manager for One Maryland One Book.
Tags: Cedric Jennings, Hope in the Unseen, One Maryland One Book, Success
August 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Anyone reading the recent Washington Post article on Cedric Jennings should look at his online comments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072503379_Comments.html
April 12th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I just finished “A Hope in the Unseen” and had Googled to find out “updates” on Cedric Jennings.
I find it painfully humorous to read, now — April 2009, with the economy in tatters — that Cedric turned down a job at Goldman Sachs. Evil, greedy Goldman Sachs, and yet a year or 18 months ago, such a position would have been regarded — by the Washington Post, at least — as “success.”
I hope Mr. Jennings continues on his path, and recalls that the snotty, condescending Post and its ilk are just older versions of the privileged slackers he encountered at Brown. Deal with them in the same way, Mr. Jennings: ignore them and blow on past.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Thinking about this made me think of a quote. It’s something like: “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Amerindo Arron Emmerson