On Individual Success
About ten years ago, I got my first real full-time job in the USA. I had had internships in college, retail jobs, summer teaching gigs, and my two years teaching in Korea, but until I was 26, I’d never had a full-time, benefit-providing job. It paid about $40k — in NYC! — and the sad thing is that I was so grateful for that amount of money that I thought it was a lot.
Now, look, I can only write this from my own perspective. I grew up with a certain amount of class privilege — although that’s mitigated by my race and disability — and I had many a peer who was raking in cash by the hundred-thousands the moment we all graduated from college. In order to not feel inadequate when I saw people at reunions, I had to tell myself my work — at the time, at a settlement house — was for the collective good, and that individual success was secondary, or even immoral to pursure. I fully convinced myself I was “better” than them.
When I look back at that version of me, I know that, first of all, I needed both therapy and a diagnosis that wouldn’t come for eight more years, but also, if life were as simple as a negative correlation between virtue and individual success, there wouldn’t be anything for a lot of us to chew over.
I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of value in being a starving artist, at least not for its own sake. Not being able to pay your bills is not conducive to positive outcomes, to say the least, even if it seems romantic from the outside.
On the other hand, if all you do is chase accolades and power, well, you’re a Succession character, and that didn’t really end up all that great for them, at least not emotionally (they all have plenty of money). So where is the balance? What’s the tightrope that so many of us have to walk?
I write this from a very fortunate position. I have achieved a certain measure of individual success. I was offered a book contract without seeking one out, I finished my doctorate early, and then, after being ignored by the schools I applied to work for, I got a much better job that allows me to do all this public scholarship for fun. I’m basically an academic as an intellectual hobby (not that I don’t get paid for talks — on the contrary I don’t do much for free anymore).
Some of the markers of American success are looking more possible for me in the future — chiefly homeownership and retirement (as if I’ll ever slow down lol). I feel deeply conflicted about this, which is probably silly, but I find it sort of ugly to be able to be held up as a positive example just because I’m, in some ways, an exception. I have a small measure of survivor’s remorse because not only am I a Black person with ADHD, but I was genuinely convinced the most I could ever aspire to professionally was the level I’d reached in 2015 or so, and it’s hard to get used to where I am now.
At the same time, though, the person you spend the most time with is yourself, and when everyone else goes to bed, or you’re out for a walk, it’s your own thoughts you have to live with. Perhaps you’re so zen that you truly don’t care about your peers and their experiences, but for everyone else, it’s silly to pretend that it doesn’t actually feel better to be able to point to things you’ve achieved.
Indeed, I wouldn’t have gotten this job if I hadn’t graduated early, and I wouldn’t have graduated early if it weren’t for the book contract, and I wouldn’t have been offered the contract if it weren’t for an article I wrote, and I wouldn’t have written it if I wasn’t frustrated with my peers in language education, and I wouldn’t have been frustrated with them had I not left the field due to a lack of income, and I wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for my wife, and I wouldn’t have ever spoken to her if I hadn’t turned myself into a really good marathon runner, because she was an accomplished athlete and my then-recent success gave me confidence to approach her. Without the very individualized pursuit of marathon running, and notable amateur success within it, none of this happens.
I say all this to say, individual success is not something any of us can pretend doesn’t feel good. It concerns me, however, that the more successful we become, the more isolated we are meant to be, with larger and more separated properties, fewer professional peers, and a greatly diminished number of people we can directly relate to. Yes, I can hear you saying “capitalism causes isolation,” but it’s more than that.
Ultimately, I am not sure I’ll ever be able to fully sit comfortably in my successes, such as they are. I do talk up what I’ve done sometimes because I really have done a lot in a short period of time, but I don’t think it matters much if it doesn’t help my people, and I think that is the key.
Now “my people” isn’t just about racial identity. I mean Black people, sure, but I also mean my neurodivergent folks (particularly ND folks of color), my academics (particularly academics of color, you get it by now), my educators, my language people, every community I am in some way a part of. It would be dishonest of me to pretend that my continuing success was not partially a way to give myself a big enough platform that I can advance causes I believe in, even though it’s nice to have achieved what I wanted as a small, lonely child who got teased a lot for being “weird” — I just wanted people to care about what I had to say, and now (some) people do.
So, in 2023, my success matters to more than just me and my family, whether I’m talking aboutthe traditional material trappings of prosperity or the emotional resonance of my scholarship. To me, it’s silly to pretend that only collective uplift matters, because you don’t live inside anyone else’s brain and you and only you have to live with yourself 24/7. But success can’t be purely individual either, and striking that balance is going to, I think, be a lifelong journey, and it’s probably best if I — and maybe you? — come to accept that reality.
With all of that said, having to strike that balance is a whole lot better than being ecstatic about making $40k. We should all be so fortunate.
