Tragedy TedTalk

You cant be successful at everything. When we believe someone is successful, we usually think that they are rich. In our society, we determine success by careers and money. We oftentimes allow society to define what we all believe that success is. In this TedTalk, Alain De Botton discusses how humans view success and failure and connects it to how we see tragedy.

De Botton discusses how so many people are anxious about their careers and lifestyles because of people's "snobbery". So many people nowadays judge people by their covers, and that can make that person feel like a failure. Just because someone wants to judge someone else in a negative way doesn't make that person a failure, but oftentimes it makes them feel like one. These "snobs" are helping create a society with a very strict definition of success that should not exist. Who are we to decide what success is?

Another issue that De Botton discusses is that we define success as something we are not. Success is always one step better than yourself, and we never determine ourselves as "good enough". In todays society, only the rich and famous are successful, and that is not the case. People need to begin to create their OWN definition for success. Just because society considers someone a failure because of the positon that they are in, doesn't mean that they are one. This part of the talk really struck me because it is true. You are only a failure if you feel that you are one. The only way to combat this snobbery and this false sense of success is to not succumb to the societal standards. We all need to work together to create a new sense of success, whatever WE feel success means in our own lives.