this has been a thought in my head for the last few days: the price of success. i've been pondering the same few questions about this topic. i hope that maybe later in life i can look back on this to reminiscence what i defined success as in different stages of my life.
success is a subjective term that probably means something different to anyone. for the scope of this, i'll define success in the most two recent ways that ive defined it in my life. many years ago, before i enrolled into university, success was defined to me as helping my gaming guild be the best guild on the game that i played day-in and day-out. more recently (last ~2 years), i've shifted success to mean something more tangible - career progression. ill try extracting the common transferrable themes that ive noticed and pose questions
back when i wasn't in school, this game that i played was extremely time consuming. guilds would fight other guilds. because guilds had egos for wanting to be the "best guild", fights would go on for over 6 hours in some instances because neither guild wanted to throw in the towel and let the other guild claim a win. there were also several ways to go about fighting that shifted outside of the game. one guild could plant a "spy" in another rival guild to receive intel or make fun of the other guild's members. a guild could hack members and ruin their accounts. ddosing/doxing was a regular thing. overall, it was a really bad environment to be a part of. i was definitely an extremist at one point in my life and took things way too far out of this silly game. even though i participated in some shady stuff, i can't say that i regret it. i've had some pretty bad fuckups/not so "hot" moments in my life, but the chain effect of those experiences and actions have grounded me into the person that i am today. the experiences that i live through today will hold influence to the type of person i can be tomorrow. this can go in either direction of good or bad.
i think there's a valid argument to say that the people throwing hours and hours into this game are wasting their life, but i believe that there can potentially be a net positive if looked at in a certain light. ultimately, the people on this game cared so much about their guild because of egos being hurt. because of their egos, they would take extreme ownership of wanting to prove they are the best guild no matter the cost. because of extreme ownership, they took end-to-end responsibility and developed the qualities of being persistent, innovative, as well as handful of other toxic qualities through the process. but, from being able to play a video game for hours and hours that leads to a dead to end objectively, these people have developed a quality that in my opinion is extremely hard to grasp - extreme ownership.
when my guild closed in 2018, this was the year i went back to university, decided to pursue software engineering as a profession, and quit the game that i spent countless hours on. at the time of enrolling into university, i defined a goal for myself that i wanted to be able to make at least 6 figures post-graduation so that i could support myself. the money wasn't the only reason why i wanted to pursue this field, but financial freedom is something ive always wanted since ive been poor my entire life. anyways, even though entering university for me was objectively useless since my degree doesn't translate to what i wanted to do post-university and i was accumulating student loan debt through this process, being able to observe what people were doing in the traditional cs route was truly enlightening. because of the competitive drive i developed years ago, i viewed hitting this goal as just another game and seeing the competition gave me the confidence boost that i needed to see. my progression of hitting this goal i defined for myself was solely in my own hands. i had no class or person looking over my shoulder through this. it ultimately required for me to take extreme ownership of this situation - the same exact concept that i learned from spending countless hours on that game. i spent countless hours supplementing knowledge, learning how to succeed in interviews, etc, etc, and i was able to hit my goal last fall with a couple internships. the mindset that i crafted for myself when preparing was very all-or-nothing.
looking back on it now, the behaviors that were essential to my success were definitely toxic - just like some of the behaviors i picked up in the game previously! being extremely persistent, narrow-sighted, and probably a little obsessed with the prestige if i were to have succeeded. likewise with the game, i can't say that i necessarily regret the steps or framework i built for myself during this phase in my life. i was able to hit my goal and able to meet some really cool people along the way that i know i will be connected with for years.
the reason why i wanted to write this post was to highlight that even though i defined success in very different ways (one of which that could be seen as extremely useless to many), i was able to transfer core fundamentals of one scenario into another.
however, the "success" definitely came at a price of adapting traits that can be perceived as toxic and draining. at this point in my life, i feel restless if i'm not able to work on something throughout the day. currently, i'm in a phase where its just a nonstop grind of interview, interview, interview, and it just isn't something i care about as much like i did previously because i already hit my goal. ive just grown away from this grind since i know if i really put my mind to it, i know i can succeed, but what's the point? to gain some slight prestige? meh. days at a time i feel pretty drained about this situation. the last thing i want to do is prepare, but objectively i should be pouring my time into nothing but preparation. it's what i did last year, so why am i stopping now? its a really privileged problem to have and the last thing i want to do is come off as ungrateful. but sometimes i just honestly can't answer if adapting toxic traits to achieve success is worth it. what i've noticed in society lately, is that we're told to not "push ourselves too hard" or not do things we're "uncomfortable" with. i believe that people create narratives to convince themselves about why they can't achieve something or why that something might not be that good as i've been a victim for this in the past. personally, i've been trying to adopt a lifestyle to fit the latter, but some days i wonder if i could adopt a different framework later in life that isn’t so critical of myself and my ego. who knows, maybe i’m just naive lol
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