Local definitions
How you answer the question depends upon where you are.
Our navigator visited the Naval Academy over the weekend, an institution which is a curious blend of the academic and military worlds. It brought to mind something we’ve observed over the years: how you measure whether your career is successful depends very strongly on your environment. Of course there are degrees of success, but we think every profession has its criterion for basic win/fail evaluation.
In the scientific world, it is landing a permanent, tenured position, normally but not always at a university. For a Naval officer, it is a command position; though there is a sort of consolation prize for anyone lasting long enough for a regular retirement, in command or not. For a Merchant Marine officer, it’s a permanent Captain position with a well-run and well-paying company. For a consultant or contractor, it is bringing in lucrative business consistently. We’re less familiar with the professional world of artists, but there the basic criterion may be the simple ability to make a living making art. That may apply to writers too, fiction and non-fiction.
One can, of course, be more successful than this. But the officers who seriously aspire to an Admiral’s rank are few (and those who succeed fewer); one can be considered a success without raising one’s own flag. Nobel-winning scientists are certainly successes, as are those with consistently big grants and important discoveries, but again these are beyond the basic win/lose stage. Similar high-end achievements might be, for visual artist say, a one-person retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art; for a writer, a best-seller, a Booker Prize or even a Nobel.
The thing we noticed is that we only need to step into another environment to absorb its criterion very quickly. A scientist visiting a consultant friend begins to suspect that he is underpaid and not achieving anything of real importance. A Naval officer visiting a merchant-ship union office may quickly pick up something of the attitude that his ship is overmanned and overcomplicated, run by amateurs. Of course the phenomenon runs both (or all) ways.
It is easy enough to imagine the tragedy of a person in one profession applying the criterion of another, and making failure of success (or vice versa). No doubt novels could be, and have been written about such a basic conflict. But we think such a situation is rare; the local rules have a very powerful effect. Much more likely is a person who could do well in another field, but by the local criterion that would be failure, so never makes the change. That’s another tragedy.
You have the power to make your own definition of success, or at least to choose among several on offer. But to make a free choice (as far as that is possible) you have to get out of the professional environment and see each option from the outside. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.
