The One Real Discussion We Had

Success. The idea of success has been the main topic of our class's discussion relating to "Death of a Salesman" this week. Therefore, I have no real option but to blog on the idea of success.

In the play, Willy Loman is the catalyst for our discussion of success. He lived his life as a salesman, and probably a mediocre one at that, and is now at a point where he is no longer effective at the job he has chosen and can no longer make a living as a salesman. He is old. He is washed-up. He is fired. At this point, the reader cannot help but see Willy's life as a failure--the opposite of success. But even were Willy a less awful salesperson, his impossible ideal of a successful salesman would prevent him from achieving any sort of satisfaction from his job. He sees success as a salesman as the adoration of every buyer and seller that one ever comes into contact with. He sees success as popularity and memory after death. But the fact is that even a good salesman is not going to be particularly popular nor his death mourned by many.

So there it is. Willy could not achieve success even were he competent due to his high standard for success. This brings into the discussion the relativity of success. Success is completely subjective, so whether or not one acheives it is an entirely personal phenomenon; however, we can posit that one constant in the achievation of success is satisfaction. That is really the important part of success: achieving satisfaction.

Once again, satisfaction is a completely personal condition, and what each person needs to gain satisfaction is completely different. But we can be one-hundred percent sure that with success comes satisfaction, although perhaps satisfaction can come without success.

So what we can conclude is that success cannot be easily defined as making a certain amount of money, or befriending a certain number of people, or anything along those lines: success can be defined as the completion of life goals that is rewarded with personal, lasting satisfaction.