I want to talk a little bit about success, and what exactly it means to be successful. Why? Because I attended an awards ceremony this evening for my sixth form college, and there was a man there named Fred who gave a short speech after all the awards were handed out. I think it was quite possibly the most inspirational speech I’ve ever been present at. Fred spoke a little bit about how the world is changing so quickly and is becoming more and more technologically advanced, and how we, ‘the most educated people in the world’ (a slight exaggeration there, I feel!), need to decide how we’re going to use the resources available to us. In fact, Fred gave three scenarios as options:
- We shy away from technology and all it has to offer us, because we may be ‘scared’ of the power that is available to us.
- We use technology for meaningful, everyday things, without harnessing its full potential.
- We fully harness technology and all of its capabilities to make a positive difference to the world.
Now, it’s quite clear which option I’d choose. In fact, I think there’s only one options that anybody should choose: the third one. We search for meaning in our lives, and it’s through the use of everything that we have available to us in this modern era that will allow us to find that meaning.
Fred also said one other thing of great importance: that, during World War II, it was the most educated people who were responsible for the most deaths. It was the educated people who designed the gas chambers, and the guns, and the tanks. That’s a scary statistic, and at the time I wondered where on Earth he was going with this trail of thought. After all, one minute he’s saying how we’re all educated, and the next he’s saying how it was educated people who caused the most deaths in one of the most tragic events in history. However, he went on to say it’s not about purely being educated, but rather combining that education with a sense of morality, in order to truly achieve. I think that’s a brilliant, beautiful, wonderful sentiment. What’s the use in having knowledge if you then don’t know what to do with it? The truly successful people are those who can use what they’ve learnt wisely; who have a moral compass that points true and can act on not just their heads, but their hearts as well.
Another quick thought, though: isn’t saying “Hey, I’m successful!” self-righteous? Is success something that should be left for others to judge? The problem with that is that everyone has their own sense of what success is; their own criteria for what would make them successful. But is it really right for us to judge ourselves? I’m not too sure, and I believe it’s something that needs a bit more thought.
