The Blogger SAT Challenge

Booker T. Washington learned, '.that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.' Mr. Washington's position is not without merit, but it fails to capture the full measure of success.

Mr. Washington's sutra holds forth two metrics of success and two only. The first, and according to Mr. Washington, the more typical, is the position achieved at the end of life's journey. The second, more favored by Mr. Washington, are the obstacles overcome in achieving that position by the end of the day. In order to properly critique that schema, we must first examine those two metrics on their own merit; let us so begin.

Clearly, the position achieved in life is a worthy figure of merit for success. It is very difficult to argue that, e.g., a powerful politician or a wealthy banker or a successful athlete is unsuccessful. In this, the ambitions to those positions of power, fortune or fame are so strongly imprinted into popular culture that having attained them simply must be considered a mark of success.

However, Mr. Washington raises a very good objection to the overall scheme by indirectly bringing up the notion of struggle. While it is hard to consider, continuing one example above, a powerful politician as being unsuccessful for having achieved that position in life, the apparent magnitude of that success can be lessened if, e.g., the politician is known to have come from a politically powerful dynasty, or achieved his or her position more through fortuitous circumstances than by skill or fortitude. Similar themes can be developed for any example cited above.

Further, Mr. Washington writes with great understanding of the human condition, and with a great nobility of purpose. He at once extends the notions of success from the highest reaches of society down into realms more accessible to the bulk of society, and confers a measure of dignity on those born poor who struggle all their lives to-yes, successfully-raise their own circumstances, as well as those of their posterity.

On the face of it, therefore, Mr. Washington's observation is powerful and apt. But is it complete? No. Mr. Washington, writing of both position and struggle, leaves out the essential ingredient in success: the goal. The successful politician may be a success to the world, but not to himself if he fails to use his position to achieve any larger goals he may have. The wealthy banker may be the object of the world's envy for his wealth, but a failure in his own eyes if his money has not achieved him his other goals. Mr. Washington has, in short, assumed that the position achieved in life is the goal of that life, and this may simply not be true.

And this applies to both ends of the scale, for the humble worker who wanted only to provide food for his family may have achieved all his goals simply by working to ripe old age. or he may have failed if, despite overcoming many obstacles, he has failed to put his children through college.

There is no success without a goal, and in leaving goals undefined, Mr. Washington has failed to capture the notion of success.

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