Let’s talk about success-success.
How should it be measured? Some suggest measuring it in the number of cars in your garage, the year printed on a bottle of wine, the number of friends, Michelin stars at your dinner, or the amount of time you can spend without going to work.
But then how do you measure the success of a doctor who spent twenty hours performing a heart surgery and saved a life? And if you compare him to Oskar Schindler — is he more successful, or less?
My position is simple: you are successful if your unrealized desires do not cause you pain, and your realized ones do not make you fear loss. By this definition, a Buddhist monk sitting on a rock all day is more successful than a Business Youth “boar.” The former possesses exactly what is sufficient for him, while the latter constantly compares himself to those around him — and, unsurprisingly, constantly loses that comparison. Such is life: wherever you go, you end up among people who have gone further in that direction. Out of eight billion people on the planet, only Elon Musk cannot say, “Well, if only I had as much money as that guy!”
Compare, for example, Alexander the Great and Diogenes. The former was not satisfied with all the conquered land and several dozen Alexandrias. At one point, the latter lacked only sunlight — and only because the former was blocking it. Alexander famously said, “If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes!” — but to be honest, I think he was holding something back. I believe he would have wanted to be Diogenes even while being Alexander.
Success is something that is possible only with an internal locus of control and a simultaneous recognition of the limits of what you can influence. If your success depends not only on how many cars you personally own, but also on what cars your neighbor, your former classmate, and Putin’s security guard own — you will inevitably suffer, because you will be handing over far too much control to other people.
And of course, I am not suggesting that you give up on ambition. But in my experience, earning enough for a Tesla is much easier when you are not constantly worried that, out of all electric transportation available to you right now, you only have access to a trolleybus.