Changing the Geometry of Success

What if we looked at changing the geometry of success?

Look up the word “success” in the dictionary, and you’ll find some version of the following definition: 

The accomplishment or achievement of one’s goals. The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.

These definitions frustrate me, because they imply that success is linear. Going back to high school geometry, I’d say that success as it is defined above would be categorized as a line segment. You have a starting point when you set a goal. You have an endpoint when you achieve it. You’re either on the line to success or you’re off it. And when you reach the endpoint you’re done. Game over. Terminated. There’s nothing to look forward to unless you start all over.

This definition, sourced from and reinforced by our cultural conventions, goes further than the implication that this is a one-way street with a dead-end. Our cultural definition of success as achievement reinforces the idea that our value is tied to what others can see. To perpetuate the illusion, we buy things to show off to those around us, to make ourselves seem bright and shiny. Our mistakes and failures, and even our plateaus, are discounted, seen as steps backward, a waste of energy and resources. There is no value unless you are constantly moving forward, going up, climbing the mountain and shouting to the masses where you are and what you have consumed. Once you are at the top and the goal is achieved, the accolades stop. The climb back down is ignored, or worse, it is equated with failure.

What if success was defined not by the end point, but by the journey? What if it was about having a long meandering path, full of ups and downs, crossroads and side trips, and stops along the way? What if it was about trying things and learning equally from what works as well as what doesn’t? What if it was about continually evolving?

The other side of the mountain, and even the journey back to the beginning, holds just as much insight as the climb up. Often the relative ease of the return provides the necessary space to process the initial climb up. There are new types of challenges to navigate on the way down. And the new perspective of looking down the path allows you to notice things that were missed on the way up, when you were busy keeping your head down and pushing through.

In the natural world, success is a cycle that includes both growth and decay, as a source of enrichment for new life. The turning inward replenishes the nutrients and completes the cycle, providing growth not just for the individual, but for the entire ecosystem.

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

We are continually on a journey. We go through different stages of growing, pushing, climbing, and also letting go, coming back to ourselves, and resting so that we can make room for new growth, new life, new ideas. Each place can be celebrated for gifts that we give and receive. Seen in this way, success is not a segment that is punctuated at each end, but rather a circle, a cycle, and inclusive of the whole.