Success

How can success be defined?

 Success has always been a measure of how well a person does. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines success as a favorable or desired outcome. People have dreams and goals they would like to accomplish and a vision of themselves they would like to see come true. Success is also a matter of an individual’s perception of what it is. It could be how wealthy a person is, or measured by selfless acts of generosity toward our fellow man. And it can also be how much influence and authority a person can have that people may perceive as successful. Success can be categorized in to three different ways: a materialistic view, one of power and the contributor. With these three categories, many great human influences come to mind such as Donald Trump, Julius Caesar and Dr Randy Pausch.

The material view of success is a measure of success mostly believed in the Western culture. It is a viewpoint that a person is only successful by the amount of money, social status and possessions an individual owns. And who better to represent this view of success then Donald Trump. The American business magnate who made his millions in the real estate and now has hotels, condominiums, casinos and apartments all over the world. A true businessman, Donald Trump has excelled at every sector he had interest in whether it was authoring his book, a career in the television industry with many cameos in different series or his famous television reality show. His social and political status has skyrocketed with help from the media and has even reached a point where he is being considered a possible candidate for the President of the United States in 2012. The man has an estimated net worth of 2.7 billion dollars and earns an average of fifty million a year.

Power is a view of success that can be seen all over the world. People of this viewpoint will always want more and more because when it comes to power, enough is never enough. The power view wants control and wants to be in control of everything. Julius Caesar is a true example of the definition of power. A man who began his career in the military, Caesar rose up the ranks to general and on one of his return to Rome, his political career began. He applied what he learnt in the military in his political life. Power was a very motivational tool and he was willing to betray, lie, cheat, blackmail and manipulate his way to the top, all the while transforming the Republic in to the Roman Empire.  All who opposed him were no match for his unrivaled military power and when the Empire was at the brink of total chaos, he emerged as ruler and self-proclaimed dictator. He would pass laws that would help him stay in power and prevent others from opposing him by limiting their authority. He also passed a law that allowed him to choose his own magistrates and changed them from becoming representatives of the people to representatives of the dictator. So drunk with power, he is known for a particularly famous saying, “I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.”

                The contributor view of success has people believe that they are only as successful as the amount they contribute, whether it be to society in their community or society in general on a world scale. People of this view point feel that giving back is its own reward. Dr Randy Pausch was someone who was a staunch believer in giving back and doing your best to help others. Dr Randy was an American professor of computer science and virtual reality. He was inspired by the Disneyland rides and wanted to build more rides to benefit children. He is most famous for his ‘Alice’ software program that is used to create computer animations using 3d models. He always believed that people should learn something important but in a fun way. He was also a great believer of helping others achieve their dreams. One such particular example is a student of his named Tommy Burnett who studied under Dr Randy and then went on to help in the fourth, fifth and sixth ‘episodes’ of the Star Wars saga. In this view, people will generally see Dr Randy as incredibly successful in his field of academia and for his contributions to humanity and the future of technology.

In conclusion, success can be defined in many different ways and viewed by many different people and these definitions play an extremely important role in one’s life. Whether it be material wealth and the amount of expensive possessions they can own, or how much a person can contribute to his fellow man or how much power one can amass. Someone’s definition on success can shape and mould the way one creates their path in life and is a measure of how well they do and how people perceive their success.

Topic of Expertise

The subject I’m most interested in is psychology. However psychology is too vast a field to just say I’m interested in just psychology. So let’s start with its definition. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes in both human and animals. So of course what I’m most interested in is human behavior and that age old question – what makes people ‘tick’? There’s a certain stereotype regarding psychology in which people believe that mind control or mind reading is involved and that scientists conduct mental experiments on unwilling, helpless patients. This could not be further from the truth.

For many others and me included, psychology is ultimately a way to help people with difficult internal problems that have nothing to do with the physical body but that which lies in the mind. Observing human behavior has always come very naturally to me. But in order to help people every piece of information is important. Information like a person’s perception, emotions, motivations, personality and relationships are just some of the many examples that are needed to truly understand a person and so help counsel them in the right direction. People all throughout my life have always come to me for advice and counsel. Having to provide that is a huge responsibility as they were people I cared about so understanding every single bit of information was crucial to getting them into the right direction.

Psychology as a science hasn’t been around that long as compared to the other sciences, around 125 years and in that time it has become a very important subject in relation to mankind such as in industrial and organizational settings, human development and aging, sports, health, the media, law and forensics. In the field of psychology there are 5 main categories that interest me and that I can relate to. They are behaviorism, humanism, clinical, social and personality.

Social psychology revolves around the study of how humans think about each other and how they have an influence on a person’s behavior beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypes about other people. Personality psychology is well basically the study of the human personality and the factors that affect personality like behavior, emotion and thought. Clinical psychology is a bit more complicated than the previous two. Although the common goal of promoting well-being and personal development is clear, the route to understanding, relieving and preventing psychological based problems comes with psychological assessment and psychotherapy. Humanistic psychology has a very fresh outlook when it comes to understanding a person’s distress. Instead of breaking down a person’s life in to different categories and trying to see how each category has a link to the problem, humanism focuses on the whole person and uniquely human issues such as free will, personal growth, death, aloneness, freedom and meaning. The theory of behaviorism is that people might be conditioned to behave in a certain way as a result of their environment. Certain stimuli in the environment and what reaction follows from that change is a very interesting study.

Psychology in its very basic form studies the human mind and to help solve problems that arise within the mind. Everything mentioned above and more is needed to help figure out the cause and the solution to their current predicament and help them lead better lives. And that’s really what it’s all about, helping people.  

Subject matter taken from Wikipedia.

Attitude Towards Writing

I’ve never been very enthusiastic about writing and find it to be quite troublesome. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the true value of writing and writing well or enjoy some forms of writing. Penning down ones thoughts and opinions in a way that was originally intended to be viewed by the author and to convey it so that it’s understood by the target audience is a very important skill to master. Writing to me provides a channel to clearly communicate in a way real time speaking can’t. And thus in order to communicate effectively certain rules come to mind like types of words used, phrasing, structure, tone and audience hence my slight pessimism towards writing. I have however been partial to certain positive incentives that come with well written works. Some few obvious like getting good grades and thus passing this credit or how about in the long term like having to write my 10000 word dissertation in a well thought out and structured order to get my PhD. And although I don’t keep a diary and try to keep my emails as short as possible writing is an important part of life and should remain that way.