Is success to be measured more in terms of obstacles overcome than in the position ultimately reached? The question is in the end one of definition, of defining the word 'success.' This process of defining is not a semantic exercise. Instead, it requires the speaker -- i.e., the person who says 'yes' or 'no' to the initial question -- to declare which he thinks is more worthy of praise: the overcoming of obstacles, or the reaching of a certain point even where the path has been trouble-free. My own answer is that a person who overcomes obstacles to reach a given point is more praiseworthy than a person who reaches a farther point after traveling along a path that contained no obstacles.
Take, for instance, academic achievement. One person, call him Sam, is born with all possible advantages related to academics: a brain that tends towards verbal analysis, a family with sufficient wealth to pay for the best schools, and sufficient physical health so that sickness does not interfere with study. Another, call him George, is born into poverty, with parents who care nothing for academic achievement. Imagine that George -- despite lack of early-childhood education, and despite a chronic illness that interferes with school attendance -- manages to graduate from college having learned a great deal, through hard work.
But Sam graduates from college and gets a Master's Degree of some sort. Has Sam 'succeeded' more than George has? I believe not.
One can find similar comparisons in all other fields of possible 'success': wealth, athletic achievement, mental health, and so forth. Some people are born with advantages, or are given them by others. Some people are not.
Does this mean that a person born with every advantage, and helped along by others, could never really 'succeed' as I would define the term? Not at all. For the fact is that everyone has obstacles to overcome. Even the luckiest and most talented person can reach a level at which it will take substantial effort to get better at the task at hand -- again, whether it be academic achievement, wealth, mental health, art, or any other sort of endeavor. The lucky and talented person, when pushing himself or herself to keep going when the path has become difficult, is overcoming obstacles of some sort.
In short, I fully agree with Washington's statement, because I believe that 'success' in the sense of human achievement has no absolute measurement or settled definition. I define 'success' as a mixture of result and effort, as I think that Washington did. He did not speak merely in terms of effort; note that he spoke of obstacles 'overcome,' not of mere attempts to overcome them. And to define 'success' in this sense - as result and effort together -- will lead us to celebrate the best in humanity.
