Chapter 22 5.b The definition of success -- the core flaw of "Success Science"

It seems that everyone knows what success is, but no one can explain it clearly, and it is difficult to find a unified definition.The explanation in the dictionary is simple and clear. The so-called success is to achieve the expected goal.Although this explanation is correct, it is incomplete, because the "goals" that each person may expect are really different in thousands of ways. However, in those "success study" books that occupy almost every counter or even special section of every bookstore, we can see that they have something in common, that is, the definition of "success" is simplified and vulgar.Recently, "New Weekly"12 had a good article titled "There is a kind of poison called success".Regarding the vulgar and oversimplified definition of "success" by "Success Science", "New Weekly" is so ironic:

……In the logic of success studies, if you don’t earn a “luxury house, a famous car, and an annual income of millions”, if you don’t become a successful person envied by others, it proves that you can’t do it, and you have committed the “crime of failure”! Help you "realize the value of life", "develop personal potential", "earn one million in three months", "have a car and a house", "retire before the age of thirty-five"...Successful learning is flooding the workplace and the Internet, Motivated people are lost in a variety of promotion courses and short-term training courses. Success masters are flying all over the sky, and success training has become an industry.

…When the success of the whole people becomes a frenzy, and success rises to the mainstream values ​​that everyone flocks to like absolute truth, the science of success is a poison, and those who believe in the science of success will become victims. Interestingly, despite everyone saying "the world is changing fast", in the end we always find that "nothing changes".Today's "luxurious houses, famous cars, and annual income of millions" are the dreams of many men, and even the conditions for girls to choose a spouse.Look through old newspapers. In the 1960s and 1970s, when choosing a mate, girls required the man to have the "four major items": watches, bicycles, sewing machines, and sofas; in the 1980s, they also required the "four major items": TV sets, refrigerators, and tape recorders. , washing machine; the superficial changes in the past 20 to 30 years reflect the invariance in essence—they all reflect people's strong desire to "have materials or resources that they have never owned".

In fact, everyone knows the truth, "You can't have everything."No one is fool.However, the desire to "want to own materials or resources that have never been owned" is so strong, so people start to turn to another direction: "I don't have much, but I have more than you! In this way, I will be very happy." Looking at the "success" defined by many people, in the final analysis, it can be summed up in only four words-"superior", that is, the so-called "Niu ×" in the language of the market.If you can't be better than anyone else, then it's best to be "one person under ten thousand people", and the next best thing is to be better than most or many people.

Defining "success" in this way has long been doomed to an embarrassing ending.Be it wealth, rights, or status, using these things to define success is just a different way of saying it.That's what most people want.If being better than anyone else is success, there will be no successful people in this world--God is the best (if he, she, or it, really exists)--and that is not a person, but a god.However, most people never feel that there is anything wrong with their definition.Or how could anyone give up even a penis to be a slave? --This kind of example can be found everywhere in ancient and modern China and abroad, and there are infinitely many that can be leaked from the fingers.

In fact, "jealousy", which is defined by Christianity as one of the seven deadly sins, is also produced in this way.Jealousy arises from a distorted understanding of the difference between oneself and others.Most people can't get rid of the emotions generated by comparison, whether it is positive or negative, all their lives.Some people say that happiness is a kind of comparison.Someone even joked that for a man, happiness is that his income is always 20% more than that of his brother-in-law.There is an ad slogan that is quite popular, but in fact it is also based on the same psychology: there is no best, only better.

But the problem is that comparison is relative, and relative is never-ending.Therefore, we can easily imagine that for those who base their concept of happiness on the results of comparison with others, happiness will be difficult to obtain forever. Younger, more beautiful or handsome than them, with higher income, greater rights, more noble status, and greater wealth. Some people have seen through all this, but chose to escape.These people will think that "everything is empty" and that everything is just a fantasy.So Cheng Sheng himself can jump out of the world of mortals and stay away from the hustle and bustle.In fact, this is just a manifestation of too weak mental strength.

Some other people also saw through all this, but did not choose to escape.Instead, accept it frankly.They use their mental powers to distinguish which joy or happiness must be based on comparison, and which joy or happiness can be obtained without comparison.Then, spend time looking for and even creating those joys and happiness that can be obtained without comparison - of course, there is also a lot of price to pay - and then live without complaints, joy to the fullest, and pain in peace. A surgeon feels very happy and happy because he has just snatched back a young life from death.A middle school teacher felt very happy because he had just explained the subtle relationship between sensibility and rationality to a group of 15-year-old children.A researcher at the Institute of Biology felt very happy and happy, because she felt that she got up from bed every day and ran all the way to the laboratory to observe and record the bacteria she cultivated. It was so beautiful and amazing.A mother feels very happy and happy, because she is sitting beside her child's bed, and the face of the child in sleep is so quiet, beautiful and radiant, so lovable...

Life cannot completely avoid comparison, but in fact, there are indeed too many joys and happiness that can be obtained without comparison, but they are often overlooked by people.As a result, a lot of time is spent pursuing the joy and happiness that can only be obtained through comparison, and in the end only more pain is obtained.But time will not flow back just because the result is unbearable pain. The nature of time determines that each of us cannot really have the opportunity to start all over again.It would be even more pathetic if one began to hope for an afterlife just because of such a result.Of course, there is something even more tragic: placing hope on the next generation, disregarding one's own experience is completely "wrong experience", and simply and stupidly thinking that one's own experience is "years of experience" after all...

As long as we can truly understand the content of about a thousand words above, we can use our minds to be liberated.Starting today, after listing all the things you have to do, carefully distinguish: Do the joy and happiness I get after doing this thing have to be obtained on the basis of comparison?Then mark and prioritize those courses of action that lead to joy and happiness without comparison.Time will pass by minutes and years as always, but you will be amazed by the changes in your life.Every minute, every second, every day, every year, the quality of time can be so different. I suddenly wonder why few people seriously study "Happiness Science" or "Happiness Science"? 13