Success is a Dirty Word

Let's talk about the word success.

The more I think about it, the more it feels like a dirty little word.

Success is typically defined as the accomplishment of a desired goal or the attainment of a favorable outcome. Traditionally, it is measured through wealth, fame, status, achievement, and recognition. And therein lies the problem. Not because goals are inherently bad, but because our culture has become overwhelmingly attached to a narrow and often unquestioned definition of what success looks like.

But what happens when an entire society becomes conditioned to pursue the same version of success—a version that no longer nourishes us or sustains us, and perhaps never truly did?

Thankfully, success is subjective. Most people, if asked, would probably claim they have their own definition of it. But what happens when an entire society becomes conditioned to pursue the same version of success—a version that no longer nourishes us or sustains us, and perhaps never truly did? What happens when we collectively reward those who have sacrificed their relationships, their health, their freedom, and often their humanity in pursuit of wealth, status, and recognition?

Open any magazine. Scroll through social media. The stories we celebrate are rarely about the mother who stepped away from a prestigious career so she could be more present for her children, while still working a modest part-time job to make ends meet. We don't celebrate the business owner who chose to close his shop because his health was suffering and he knew he needed to tend to his body before it was too late. We don't celebrate the employee who turned down a promotion because they recognized it would take them further away from the life they actually wanted to live. And yet, when I look at these stories, I see success. Not according to the conventional definition, but according to a definition that I believe is far healthier, wiser, and more life-giving.

Instead, we celebrate the executive who climbed to the top, shattered the glass ceiling, and outworked everyone around her. We applaud the sacrifices she made along the way. But if we were willing to shine a light on those sacrifices, what might we find? Relationships lost. Family members who felt abandoned. Children whose important moments were missed. Chronic stress. High blood pressure. A body quietly paying the price.

Why do we call this success?

I began thinking about this more deeply after a conversation with a dear friend who was dying of ALS. After attending a grief circle with her family and friends, she told us she felt rich.

Not financially rich. Her family wasn't wealthy by any conventional measure. She was facing imminent death—arguably one of the most frightening and heartbreaking realities a person can encounter. And yet she felt rich because she was surrounded by people who loved her. She felt rich because she had cultivated a community willing to show up vulnerably, to walk beside her, and to support her family through an unimaginable season of life. It was the perfect word because that, to me, is success.

How many people spend their entire lives climbing toward success only to discover, at the very end, that they have accumulated status but not community? Recognition but not belonging? Wealth but not people willing to sit beside them in their darkest hour?

In my own measure of success, there are three primary indicators: freedom, relationships, and holistic health.

Freedom is perhaps the greatest gift of all. In a country founded upon the ideal of freedom, it is deeply ironic that so many of the systems we participate in steadily erode it. We become trapped in a game that convinces us, often willingly, to surrender our time, our attention, our energy, and our autonomy.

Freedom is being able to live within the natural rhythms of life. It is having enough sovereignty to rest when you are tired and work when you are inspired.

True freedom is not endless opportunity. In fact, the modern obsession with limitless choice may be one of the reasons so many people feel exhausted and lost. Freedom is being able to live within the natural rhythms of life. It is having enough sovereignty to rest when you are tired and work when you are inspired. It is having enough space to listen to your body, your heart, and the world around you rather than constantly responding to external demands. Freedom exists within boundaries. Freedom exists within simplicity. It exists within the parameters of balance, harmony, and enoughness. When we stop chasing infinite options, we often discover a much deeper freedom than we imagined.

The second measure of success is relationships and community. Human beings are relational creatures. Our lives gain meaning through our relationships, not only with other people, but with the living world itself. And yet we are living through a profound crisis of belonging. We are more connected than ever before and yet many people feel deeply isolated. I don't think this is accidental. It is a consequence of pursuing a version of success that leaves little time for relationship.

Our relationships have become increasingly transactional and performative. We move through them with the same extractive mindset that we apply to so many other resources.

Our relationships have become increasingly transactional and performative. We move through them with the same extractive mindset that we apply to so many other resources. People become networking opportunities. Communities become audiences. Connection becomes content.

But relationships require something that our current culture struggles to provide: time. Time to listen. Time to show up. Time to care. Time to reciprocate. To live relationally means tending to our connections with love, respect, and mutual responsibility. It means valuing people for who they are rather than what they can offer us. It means recognizing that belonging cannot be optimized, scaled, or monetized. We cannot do this while constantly scrambling toward the next rung on the ladder.

The third measure of success is holistic health: mind, body, and spirit. A culture that celebrates achievement at the expense of well-being is not healthy. If reaching success requires chronic stress, exhaustion, anxiety, disconnection, illness, or burnout, then perhaps we should question whether what we've reached is success at all.

The body keeps score. The spirit keeps score. Our relationships keep score. A truly successful life is one in which our inner world is not sacrificed for our outer accomplishments. It is one in which our work supports our well-being rather than consuming it. It is one in which we can experience joy, presence, purpose, and vitality throughout our lives rather than simply deferring them to some future moment when we have finally "made it."

Why does any of this matter?

Because we are surrounded by a cultural narrative of success that is actively harming us.

It is reinforced through social media, advertising, business culture, and the stories we tell about who matters and why. We absorb the message, and honestly the worldview, that in order to be valuable, worthy, seen, respected, or loved, we must attain a certain level of achievement. And it is literally making us sick. It breeds a culture of extraction—of people, communities, ecosystems, and ourselves. It reinforces the logic of capitalism and colonialism, where value is determined by output, accumulation, and dominance. It pressures us to participate in a game that never ends because there is always someone more successful, more productive, more influential, more visible. And the consequences ripple outward.

A worldview rooted in competition does not support kinship. It does not support interconnection. It does not support life. When success becomes a race, I stop seeing you as a fellow human being and start seeing you as competition. I don't think about supporting you; I think about getting ahead of you. Relationships become transactional. Community becomes secondary. Health becomes negotiable. If I have to use increasingly extractive tools and systems to keep up, so be it. If I have to perform constantly, produce constantly, optimize constantly, so be it. And when the emptiness inevitably follows, I fill it with consumption, distraction, endless scrolling, and temporary comforts.

You get the picture. It's not very pretty.

Maybe the real question is not how successful we are but whether the version of success we are pursuing is actually creating lives worth living.

Maybe the real question is not how successful we are but whether the version of success we are pursuing is actually creating lives worth living. These are the questions I've been sitting with lately. Because the stories we tell matter. They shape culture. They shape what we aspire to, what we celebrate, and what we believe is possible. If all we ever hear are stories of people climbing higher, earning more, becoming more visible, more influential, and more successful according to society's standards, then it is no wonder that so many of us continue chasing a version of success that is leaving us exhausted, disconnected, and unfulfilled.

I want to help flip that narrative.

So each month, I will be interviewing someone who has redefined success on their own terms. Someone who has consciously stepped outside the dominant cultural story. Someone who chose freedom over status. Relationships over recognition. Health and wholeness over endless achievement.

These are not the stories that usually make headlines. They are not the people featured on magazine covers or celebrated for their influence, wealth, or visibility. In many cases, they sacrificed those very things. They walked away from promotions, prestige, larger paychecks, public recognition, and the promise of "making it." Not because they lacked ambition, but because they recognized that the conventional definition of success was asking them to sacrifice something far more valuable. Their freedom, relationships, health and humanity.

These are the stories I want to tell because I believe they may hold some of the most important wisdom of our time. They remind us that a successful life is not necessarily the one that looks impressive from the outside, but the one that feels whole from the inside.

And perhaps if we begin celebrating these stories more often, we can start creating a culture that values not just achievement, but belonging; not just productivity, but vitality; not just accumulation, but a life that is actually worth living.

If you want to explore how to Re-Define Success for Yourself, check out this blog post.

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