Defining “success”

With all the talk of income inequality surrounding the president’s State of the Union, let’s consider positive ways to succeed in America.

I am, quite frankly, over the negative campaign to divide America. Imagine if we focused this energy on our opportunities instead of our differences. While the president may couch his ideas in terms of “opportunity,” they are laden with the fallacies of big government solutions. Even a recent Harvard Study found that government social programs haven’t done diddly to foster upward economic mobility.

Instead let’s talk about opportunities within ourselves, our families and our culture.

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The New York Times has an article by two Yale University professors who have authored a forthcoming book, “The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.” They believe that there are three defining traits – the “triple package” – which lead to the success of certain cultures in America: a superiority complex, feelings of insecurity and impulse control.

When combined, these three seemingly incongruous traits help drive people to greater success.

While a superiority complex historically coincides with horrific practices of slavery or genocide, the concept here merely refers to an inner-belief that you add greater value.  But this is balanced with feelings of insecurity, worrying you aren’t doing enough.  Impulse control is the patience to seek greater gains in the future.

You can see this play out in America among various immigrant groups, such as Cubans, Indians, Nigerians and Chinese Americans. These groups, and many more, have risen within America in terms of education, income, politics and business. They are examples of people who feel they are exceptional, insecure in their societal status and are willing to put off immediate satisfaction for long-term gain.

Wouldn’t it be great if America’s culture as a whole was defined by these combined characteristics?

The Times points out that America was, in fact, founded on such ideals: “The United States itself was born a Triple Package nation, with an outsize belief in its own exceptionality, a goading desire to prove itself to aristocratic Europe (Thomas Jefferson sent a giant moose carcass to Paris to prove that America’s animals were bigger than Europe’s) and a Puritan inheritance of impulse control.”

What has happened? If this were still the case, we would not be enduring the current lectures on income inequality and economic mobility.

The growth of government inversely correlates with the decline of our Triple Package values.

Over time we’ve willingly given up our desire to prove ourselves because it became culturally acceptable to thrive on the teat of the taxpayers rather than the fruits of our own labor.

Impulse control is no longer necessary when government excitedly provides for your every want (not necessarily need) in exchange for your support.

We’ve maintained an air of superiority but it has been perverted, for example, to justify foreign wars, promoting ideals of democracy, which many government-educated Americans can’t even define.

We’ve taken for granted that we would always be the top dog in a world where China is gaining on us in terms of technology, education and innovation. We have no coherent plan to keep pace, much less dominate.

For America, do we define “success” as being the respected leader – economically, politically and culturally – of the free world? Who defines that success?

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Who defines YOUR success?

On a personal level, it’s dangerous to allow someone else to craft your measuring stick.

Personal success can be defined by economic achievement, educational obtainment, job fulfillment, home ownership, raising a moral family, charity work, among other things.

There is uproar over a blog post, written by a woman named Amy Glass, titled, “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry.” She questions, “Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same.”

Glass goes on to declare:

“You will never have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids.

I hear women talk about how ‘hard’ it is to raise kids and manage a household all the time. I never hear men talk about this. It’s because women secretly like to talk about how hard managing a household is so they don’t have to explain their lack of real accomplishments. Men don’t care to ‘manage a household.’ They aren’t conditioned to think stupid things like that are ‘important.’”

Glass clearly has her own definition of success. Her failure is realizing that her personal definition doesn’t apply elsewhere. Her judgment of others only speaks to her immaturity and nothing more.

Allowing someone like Glass to cause such outrage only empowers others to continue in their attempts to define you. Giving her, or anyone, that power leaves you in danger of living a life based on someone else’s values.

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We can certainly learn from others, but allowing others to dictate what is important to us only leads to regret.

When it comes to the Triple Package, those values aren’t exclusive to certain cultures. As an individual, you can decide to mimic them and fold them into your own pattern for success. Yes barriers exist, but they can be overcome as many poor-immigrant groups have proven.

There is no guarantee that you will succeed. Ever. But at least it will be on your own terms and no one else’s.

We, as Americans, could also stand to revisit our collective vision of success for our nation.