People's success at life

Parents Forum
21

The original post seems, at least to me in my reading, to be asking whether we believe there is a difference in “success” between those who made education a priority (and worked hard, as the OP did) and those who didn’t.

It is impossible to answer this because the term “success” has a different definition for each of us. Challenges happen for all of us, and it really is about how we handle them.

I believe that learning in school is best done “for the sake of learning.” If you follow genuine interests, the work is more enjoyable. However, practically speaking, many do go to school for a career and work hard for grades in classes they don’t have an interest in, for the sake of future prospects.

Whether or not a person is eventually successful or not, I always hope education can be less of a grind for grades and job prospects, and more of an exploration and expansion, that benefits you when you are employed, or unemployed :slight_smile:

22

Some friends from high school who didn’t go college had remarkable life adventures - Merchant Marine, the Marines, DEA. While I was in a cubical or cold data center or office - they might have been in 50 foot swells or in the jungles of Columbia. I personally relate more with the kids that took the college path. But spending some time with the adventurers I see missed out on some things too. There are many paths to success. I love that about life in the longer run.

23

I assumed OP was talking of financial success - which, to me, is simply financial stability, combined with personal happiness, and not necessarily great wealth…

I personally measure success - in general - by a certain level of personal happiness with one’s life.

But the fact is, being in a financially secure place helps reduce stress; and lack of stress can increase a sense of happiness and well-being.

I recently talked with my now-retired parents. I found out they get around 2200/month from Social Security. They have some savings, own their house (very modest in a very modest neighborhood) but try to live on the SS. And they do so comfortably, manage to save up a little, even, every year for a vacation. They are both happy and I’m sure they consider themselves successful in life. I do, too.

Otoh, I know a lot of people would consider themselves destitute in that position and consider themselves failures.

So, yes, it’s often about perspective, and expectations, of what “success” really is.

24

Interesting comments.

No, I’m not jealous or anything about the success of those who did not value their education as much. Surprised is a better word for it, as that was not the story that I was told in high school and in college, so I didn’t exactly see it coming.

But more importantly, I think I had my AH HA moment last night. I’m defining success as an adult as EITHER great job / great stability / etc OR having interesting Facebook postings. That’s like saying someone successful in high school or college is either a very good student or a very fun student. There aren’t a lot of people who don’t fit one of the two categories. So if I whittle down my definition of success in life to match what most people would consider success in high school (high school success = high grades; real life success = financial security) then all of a sudden the number successful people drops immensely. So there is that.

I’m happy that most people have found their way in life and found a path that makes sense to them and results in an interesting life.

Also, regarding job titles, I don’t feel bad saying that having a fancy job title is a nice thing to have in life, if your nice job title also means that you have interesting and challenging work that you like doing. We spend enough time at work that we should enjoy what we are doing and feel our time is being rewarded in ways besides financial.

I’m happy that we do not have too many kids that have succumbed to life long drug addictions that interefere with their life. We have a couple, and every parent is scared their kids will become one of the couple. But not too many out of my high school class, not nearly as many as I expected.

Finally, I do think there is a direct correlation between success at high school and success at life. In my school, I’ve gone through most of my high school class on LinkedIn (bored Friday night project) and estimated how they are doing. If we exclude trust fund babies or those that have received large inheritances, there is a direct correlation between approximate class rank and financial success today. I hope I can impress that on my children as a reason to focus hard on their education.

25

I’ve been teaching high school since 1980.

I’ll disagree that “there is a direct correlation between success at high school and success at life.”

I’ve taught thousands and thousands of kids in those years. And I’ve seen no correlation. Not if you’re defining success as “success as an adult as EITHER great job / great stability / etc OR having interesting Facebook postings.”

One kid, who I taught in grades 7 and 9 and 10 (a bizarre coincidence in our very large school) had Valedictorian written all over him at an early age. He was bright, he was well spoken, he was intuitive, he was outgoing, he was knowledgeable in everything from current events to pop culture to you name it. He was a good looking kid, he came from money, he was popular with his peers and the faculty. His future was going to be golden.

Until he had a nervous breakdown shortly before graduation. Last time I heard, he was recovering, going to school part time, living home with mom and dad and getting better.

Another, who was probably the smartest kid I’ve ever taught, pretty much reached his potential in high school. Sure, he was Valedictorian, and a sweet kid. Again, popular with the kids and the faculty, bright, outgoing, you name it. But he graduated, scrapped his plans for medical school, and we haven’t heard from him since his younger sister graduated a year or two after he did.

Are they both happy? I hope so, they were great kids. But as far as I know, neither meets your definition of success.

Here’s the thing: high school is a tiny little 4 year segment in life. It’s the year when we face our greatest changes, with the exception of those first 4 years of life. And not every adolescent who will eventually find success manages to do it on a schedule which coincides with grades 9-12.

26

In my experience, those we know can look pretty similar to one another as far as their “success” at any given moment. After all, how much do we know about each of them beyond their job title (which may or may not really represent what they do, and won’t reveal whether they enjoy their work or not), their marital status (of course, just because two people are together doesn’t mean they are happy or will stay married for the long haul), and how many kids they have (we may be able to superficially assess if their offspring are physically normal and socially well-adjusted, but there aren’t too many 8 year old derelicts. You’d have to check back with them at age 18 to judge.) However, the chickens come home to roost, and negative character traits have long term effects that may not be evident in the early years.

Relevant to the OP, having developed oneself as a responsible, hard-working and well-educated person early on makes it much easier to achieve career success. It also makes it more likely the individual will make smarter personal decisions, which contribute to his emotional and relational well-being. There’s two reasons for that: 1) a trained brain will more intelligently analyze life choices to select the better or best ones and 2) a person who achieves success early like the OP will feel more confident and in control of his life, and therefore will be likelier to avoid impulsive, rash decisions that stem from insecurity or magical thinking. (I know several less-educated women who are very unattractive, yet have convinced themselves that once they are divorced they will have their pick of gorgeous men. The well-educated women I know who are also contemplating divorce, do not tend to harbor those illusions and they are better-looking.)

I am in my early fifties and have to say that, sadly, I’ve seen a lot of friends’ lives falling apart in the last few years. Twenty years ago they looked just as successful as everyone else. But now with the kids grown, people with less self control or a weaker moral compass start to have affairs, leading to divorce. Their children are now young adults with adult-sized problems (dropping out of school, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, drug or alcohol abuse, fiscal irresponsibility) that impact the parents, some of which (not always, of course) stem from years of inadequate or lazy parenting. After all, the sort of person who doesn’t take his job as a student seriously, may not do his other jobs,like fathering, well either. Someone who is undisciplined about toughing out unpleasant situations at work or at home, will eventually run out of new places to turn. After the third spouse or fiftieth job, the pickin’s get slim and some people officially become “losers.” I don’t think being a good student necessarily equates with being a good person, but if the individual is not a good student due to negative qualities like laziness or bad habits, then those definitely carry over into other areas of life and take their toll over the years. The guy who likes his beer in college and in his twenties but is doing OK at age 30, could be a full-blown alcoholic at 40 and no longer be able to manage his life.

In sum, it ain’t over 'til it’s over.

27

people are robust to life’s challenges. isn’t that a good thing!

28

Looking back at my graduating class there are a few people that surprised everybody by their success. In school they were not very driven or focused but that changed dramatically once they got out in the work force. I am not sure if it was because they were late bloomers or because the educational system just did not agree with them. I personally think attention to education is not the only way for personal success. I have friends that also thrive and are successful in the trades or business oriented jobs that do not require academic type knowledge. They are driven though and focused on their profession.

29

There will always be those precocious kids who simply flame out. Being the d of a teacher I always heard about the kids who roared through K-9 or 10 or 11 or 12 then simply joined the rest of their friends who “caught up.”

I told the kids doing well in the educational system is like a job. They need to do the best they can and they need to balance the job with the other 2/3rd of their day. Sometimes you have to work late and you do because it’s the right thing to do, but you also need to get a good night’s sleep and have something or somethings in your life other than your job (or school) that keep your body healthy and to keep your emotional well being.

30

I don’t really want to be in a position to try to judge other people’s “success” in life.

People have different goals; my best friend from high school could have had a conventional upper middle class life but chose to be a park ranger. She lives very simply and enjoys the outdoors and is passionate about the mission of the park service. Who am I to say that she is not “successful” because she doesn’t live in the nice home in the burbs with all the accoutrements like I do?

Additionally, we all have emotional burdens and cares of some sort - whether it’s maladaptive behaviors out of childhood, a family member with an emotional problem or a health problem, etc. None of us is immune and what you see on the surface is never the true lived reality of someone else.

So it’s a fool’s game. We can all sniff at someone who is “lesser” accomplished but there but for the grace of God we go.

31

While I’m against trying to evaluate one’s life by comparing it to others’ lives, if you’re going to do that, at least look in both directions. People are always looking at how many people are BETTER off than they are…who is richer, who has a bigger house, etc. So few bother to look at how many people have it WORSE than they have it. I’d bet that just about everybody who checks out CollegeConfidential currently has a better life than 99% of the people who have ever lived.

32

I think from a financial standpoint, success at life is being able to take care of your financial obligations (paying back any loans incurred, putting meals on a table, roof over head, and paying for things you’ve done in life that cost money, like having kids) without having to depend on others.

From that standpoint, most of my high school class has been successful. There are some who have had more kids than they can afford. I don’t know how many are receiving assistance from others but I wouldn’t expect a whole lot.

In the case of the park ranger listed above, as long as that park ranger can pay bills and provide for his/her own family as needed, I think that’s fine.

I think I’ll wrap up this thread by saying that more people from my high school class are successful than I thought they would be. Interesting philosophical question.

33

"Do you find that most people seemed to be successful in life? "

  • Those who work hard are successful, those who do not work hard, are not successful. Straight forward correlation.
34

Luck is as important as hard work. At my kids’ HS, the lazy trust-fund kids (I’ve been informed that they’re called “trustafarians”) were lucky enough to be born on third base.

35

“Luck is as important as hard work. At my kids’ HS, the lazy trust-fund kids (I’ve been informed that they’re called “trustafarians”) were lucky enough to be born on third base.” - Good for them! I never envy anybody, I was always considered myself lucky because I happened to be born and to be born healthy. I always reminded everybody around me, including my kids that we are all very lucky, there are ALWAYS less fortunate, so do not whine, do not complain, do not cry. You are very lucky and use and abuse your luck or it will be taken from you by the next person in line and that is only way I know how it works By abusing your luck I always meant working hard. I do not know any other way. Working hard is also the easiest plan in a world. All other plans require much more brain than our family possess. Always check YOUR reality, not the next person reality, not that trust-fund kid’s reality, this kid reality has nothing to do with you personally, so there is no reason to even keep in mind somebody else’s reality, deal with your OWN!!! This has been working just fine for several generations and whatever other family’s approach and how it works for them is their own business, it has nothing to do with our family.

36

This is the part you are missing:

Career? Routine? Bank balance? None of those are success in life.

37

I’ve seen people in my circle derailed by having kids with serious mental or health problems, divorce, burnt to a crisp from caretaking an ill spouse/parent/kid, and extended unemployment. Those things can strike anyone, no?, and can be difficult to bounce back from.

38

If the purpose of OP’s post was to try to determine if success at HS has any correlation to success at life, consider the inverse - is failure in HS correlated in any way to failure at life?

You wouldn’t have to look too hard at our overcrowded prisons to see that they are jam-packed with HS dropouts.

And before the PC police jump all over me, I understand it is perhaps unfair to call some of our fellow brethren failures at life just because they have made some bad choices or had some bad luck.

And just like there are examples above of HS success stories who go on to troubled lives, there are similarly plenty of examples of folks who flunked out, or went to prison, but turned their lives around to accomplish wonderful things.

These are the exceptions, sadly, but we tend to talk about them more than the others. There are no guarantees.

39

While I do think that outright failure in high school is probably a sign of deep-seated problems, failure in high school does not equal lack of distinction in high school. There are a lot of people who have average intellect but above-average drive, self-discipline, backbone etc. who go on to carve out meaningful and successful lives. I went to a large public high school but was in classes with only about 100 of my 600 peers. At graduation, I was seated alphabetically next to kids I did not know. I’m pretty sure that many of them went on to lead perfectly decent lives. Just because they weren’t in AP classes with me didn’t mean that they were doomed to poverty or bound for prison. Most of them stayed around after graduation, got jobs, married, and lived in the town we grew up in. The AP students went to far-off colleges and moved elsewhere (it was a company town). Today, the high-school reunions are primarily for those who stayed local.

It’s not hard, really, to graduate from high school; it’s a sign of hoop jumping, persistence, and compliance. Kids who cannot do it in a timely manner either have chaotic lives marked by domestic disorder and poverty, or they have health issues (mental or physical).

40

I think it’s important to pay your bills, but I also think that having people to love, a reason to get up in the morning, is an index of a successful life.

I grew up on a street on which every adult male was a physician. As a small child, I reflexively referred to every adult male I saw as “Dr. [Name]” instead of “Mr.” because of it, and I had to be trained out of it. One of our neighbors was a psychiatrist. I remember him at some dinner party my parents had in the 70s saying that he believed the happiest, best-adjusted people in the world were the C students (let’s take into account grade inflation and raise that to a B). They had a required minimum level of worldly competence without angst. They were not tortured by what they did not know. They took the world as they found it.