Replying to Genevieve Hayes email on “What’s the opposite of success?”, here’s my first attempt at articulating it. 🙂
But first, let’s define success.
Success: Achieving a desired state —usually bounded to an outcome (in a sorta defined timeline).
It can take many forms and shapes.
Like value, it’s completely subjective: it lays in the eye of the beholder.
I’d approach success —or better yet— me being successful as being able to have more freedom on the different things I’d want to try and work on.
The opposite to it would be stagnation. Not being able to move in any direction. Stay the same, with the same environments, stay in “what is“… in the status quo.
This made me think that:
1. Success is not an absolute. Just like value, it changes on each situation, under each perspective, in different contexts.
2. Its opposite —to me– is not being able to do, think, play, work on “what could be”.
3. It’s something (mostly) about the long term. Sure, it could take the form of a failure (not achieving something desired NOW), but that wouldn’t define the whole thing as the opposite to success, rather, something in the way of.