Success, and why it sucks
Alternately: Success, and why you should slowly lower your expectations until you can achieve a tattered, threadbare shadow of it
Peaking early is a huge fear of ambitious, driven individuals. I know this from my massive sample size of like, five friends. Trust.
I’ve long accepted that my dreams aren’t as wild as theirs, that I would be satisfied with a modest apartment, fast Internet, and a blazing gaming rig. But not to them; this little life isn’t enough. It’s almost insulting to think that it is.
Like-minded people stick together, for better or worse, and my friends that I spend time with on the daily challenge each other, but only in the way that middle-middle class citizens do: small escapes from work (“They let me off an hour early today!”), random finds (“I got such a great deal on Groupon!”), and irrelevant gaming successes (“Got a perfect score last night!”).
They are, objectively speaking, successful and grounded. Most of them are doing much better than me career-wise, and yet they could be more. But they’re happy. Probably.
One fine night, I somehow ended up at a fundraiser. Naturally, I tried to make polite banter with these Ivy league grads and finance bros, but never had I been so out of my comfort zone.
It destroyed my ego for a while, talking to these walking success stories.
Call it naivete, but when I first encountered someone who was disappointed with a $15,000 bonus, I was shocked and a little bit angry. Contentment is a disease, and I was heavily afflicted — I was so at peace with getting a holiday meal on the company and nothing else. We even had a white elephant this year which granted us a 2-hour lunch! That was my bonus. Wild, right?
The kicker was that this was casual chat for them; it was not humble-brag but genuine complaint.
After inquiring further, it seemed that $15,000 was essentially the minimum of bonuses and that a friend of that friend was on the verge of getting backed from a venture capitalist for a start-up, potentially for a few million.
Hunger like this is hard to be satiated, and day-to-day problems are muted for the more pressing, “how can I become that guy?” Six figures out of college wasn’t impressive, it was expected. Friendship and fun come second to productivity, and moments when entertainment surpasses personal gain can be met with heavy regret and rancor.
In my industry, I frequently work with people that live paycheck to paycheck, struggle to make ends meet, and bounce between temp jobs every month. $15,000 is their yearly salary, supplemented by unemployment insurance and food stamps. They are often lucky to finish high school.
This intense oscillation between classes (and it was, for the first time in my life, the clearest line I have ever seen between class) left me winded and confused. I had little to complain about; I do live at home, but primarily out of fiscal responsibility and comfort — my parents cook better than I ever will.
The aforementioned friends never explicitly looked down on me, or even hinted at it. However, it is natural to envy, and for me, too natural to assume I wasn’t worthy.
Worker bees make up 98% of a colony. I understood at a young age that my level of effort and ambitions would likely lead me to become one. I never found that melodramatic or sad; I enjoyed the way I lived my life. The difficulties I had were standard and never would I imagine myself to be stressed out that I wasn’t making millions by age 25 — unless you’re talking Twitter followers (I’m pretty far from that too, yikes).
Back at the dinner, I found myself fake-chuckling to ridiculous concerns. A Stanford graduate had been offered to travel the world for a year, all expenses paid by his parents. He declined in order to start his 80/hour week job — he felt time off would hinder his career.
Another complained that work was slow and boring, and that he was forced to do mundane clerical duties despite being paid well over the six-figure mark. I do mundane clerical duties occasionally, why am I not being paid $50+/hour for that? Frustration and resentment build quick, especially when discussed in this air of nonchalance.
In a frantic scramble to catch up to something almost entirely unattainable at this point, I put together a stock portfolio, my IRA, and tried to fully ascertain the details behind a 401K and other “adult” things. These friends were happy to help, but my usual friends didn’t understand my change in demeanor and priorities— frankly, neither did I.
I know now that personal issues are valid across the board; “first world problems” can feel just a serious as any others. Who am I to judge? I freak out when wi-fi goes down.
Recalibration efforts took some time, but as of present day I find it was still a positive experience. I am happily more in charge of my savings but also know when to spend for pleasure.
I remain in touch with these friends of mine, but they remain out of reach. On occasion, jealousy finds her home in my thoughts, but not maliciously; just a gentle kick in the noggin before she relaxes on the couch with anxiety and sympathy. It is motivation more than covetousness. I aspire to be them (or maybe just parts of them), but within my limitations and expectations.
Success (for me) is light-years away by their standards, but I often wonder if they are immunized to the plague of contentment. A pleasant illness, once managed.
