What Does it Mean to be Successful? (And Can We Ever be Enough?)

-- By JoieLiew - 22 Feb 2024

I have spent a fair amount of time processing this idea and would like to share some of my thoughts inspired by/from our class discussions. I have a feeling this is a concept that has been looming over others too.

General Conceptions of “Success”

I see much of what we picture when describing “success” as measured by the quantifiable, such as how many awards someone receives and how wealthy someone is. The quantifiable is often paired with the qualitative, including if one went to a recognizable school and if they worked at a particular firm. There is space within this narrative for including if one overcame hardship and struggles - but the “overcome” part is key to this concept of success where there is usually a character arc of definitive growth.

I noticed this framing of success is widespread, from the profiles of speakers to the way we are encouraged to speak, write about ourselves. Where we have been, what we have done (in terms of tangible achievements), what we plan to do are meant to show who we are and, at the same time, illustrate an assumed clear path to “success.” A bonus is if this path can be shown on a resume.

I put success in quotation marks on purpose because this (admittedly, a rather sweeping summary) is just one conception of success - perhaps even one that is flawed. And, disclaimer, this is not a view that reflects my understanding of what we have been discussing in class.

“Success” in a Law School Context

I found this sweeping view of “success” amplified and echoed within law school. Professor Eben mentioned how the nature of lawyering requires a certain way of measuring success, and I think this measurement begins with the messages we receive as law students and continues into how we choose (or, are molded) to practice the law. Professor Eben expressed it best in describing how law school optimizes people by shaving off uncertain parts until they can fit into a certain kind of high-pay (and long-hours) job and are functionally swindled.

Once, I was speaking with a mental health professional at school and they expressed horror when I said I would gladly walk with friends between classes. I was equally horrified when they told me I should not because I would not have time for a 30-minute walk during law school, suggesting I must be kept so busy that other less certain parts of life need to be held in suspension. This comment seems to reflect a sense understood and shared by some that law school is meant to be all-consuming. Consuming our time, consuming many people’s dreams, consuming our sense of self until we are that ideal version of “success.”

What does success mean to me?

So, if I disagree with the views of success I have been describing, when do I feel “successful”? Sitting with Cupcake (my dog) on the grass and watching the evergreen pine needles sway in the breeze. Submitting applications I tormented myself over, allowing myself relief despite feeling I am inadequate. Sharing notes with classmates/friends, laughing over internet memes together, and sending celebratory text messages on holidays.

All of these successes won’t fit on a resume or a neat summary of what I’ve supposedly done with my life – which is the same case for everyone else. My concept of success revolves around ones that can’t be listed on one piece of paper. I have received much pushback on this concept. People find it necessary to remind me that there are abstract “doors” out there to open if only I become a specific personality, if only I got a certain grade, if only I went to this school. My response is that I think this only matters if one even desires to enter those doors in the first place. And I, after much contemplation, am realizing I do not.

Remember I was horrified when told I would not have time for a walk with friends? In that moment, my knee-jerk response was to firmly establish that, if I found myself in such a state, I would have lost part of who I am and those I care about. Instead of “success,” I would rather be able to face myself as I am, as I was, as I will be (future tense is the ultimate goal). Being at peace with oneself and one’s actions is the most successful thing I can think of.

How to be enough? (And am I?)

Unfortunately, the answer is “no.” I doubt we can ever be enough if we need to live up to “success.” Professor Eben talked about how to be non-beholden is to have enough, which sounds much better than striving for an unattainable “success” to me.

Contemplating these existential ideas suits quiet moments while overlooking scenery. I invite you to join me: walk down 116th Street to lean against the smooth stone wall bordering Morningside Park, watch the sunrise light up buildings with a neon orange glow while families walk with dogs who sniff at the melting piles of snow, joggers hurry by yet pause to trace the smokestacks with us.

When we stand still like this and reach within, what surfaces? Is it enough to see such sights? Is it enough to come to terms with existence?

This brings me to a rudimentary expression of what I would like to call my theory of social action: to see us as enough. To make space for all the many little or big wonderful things that add up to what is “us.” It’s a rather simple theory that is fundamentally about remembering we are human, we exist, and we are here.

I am not sure if I am enough, or will be. But, I am working on believing it and already believe others are enough. I have this different idea of success, I have my mind, and I have brilliant people around me who support both. And having all this? It’s enough for me.

One way to make this essay better would be to structure it more tightly. A cleaner outline, down to the paragraph level, would help you to see what the sequence of ideas should be, and to keep the next draft from rambling.

Another route to improvement would be to reconsider, rather than repeating, the sign "success." The actual through line of the draft is a contrast between "success" and "happiness," which is neither made explicit nor itself subjected to any extended inquiry. Money and status are contrasted with time outdoors, pets and family, I (in the character of "Professor Eben," which at least has the advantage of not being my name) am rendered as some sort of greeting-card philosopher, because not a word is said about lawyering (the subject of this course), what it might mean to be a lawyer, what success in work might be if it is not a matter of titles and dollars, how we might go about thinking for ourselves about those issues or what creativity (the other actual subject of this course) might mean in the discussion.

It is quite obvious, I am sure, that law school is not, cannot be, and won't be "all-consuming." While I was in law school I was also reading, writing and talking my way through a PhD in History, and simultaneously earning my living at a skilled trade, making software. I shopped and cooked for myself, my brothers and my friends, cleaned my house, plsyed poker one night a week, read fiction, saw movies, listened to music. In the last year I held a full-time job at Cravath, was mostly in California, and started my doctoral dissertation. You and the people around you are equally busy, but you spend way more of your time scrolling a smartassphone through what amounts to a universe of gossip, and attending "mandatory" law school meetings that I would never have been caught dead in. Whoever said you don't have time for a walk, no matter their profession, is a moron.

What you need is to devote some of that time to figuring out what kind of lawyer you want to be, Imagining the work you want to do and how you want to do it Figuring out how that work should fit into your life and why doing that work will fulfill your material, intellectual, moral, social and political needs is difficult. A great professional education not only equips you to formulate initial answers to those questions, but prepares you to reconsider and reframe your choices throughout a long career. That, the ability to work at what fulfills you, and to grow with your experience, is success.

Let's try a draft in which, in a tight and orderly sequence, you explain your current thinking about what you want to do, where and with whom, to make the kind of practice you think you want. Whatever you say now, and whatever practice you wind up having later, coming back to reread that essay in future will be fascinating and valuable to you. I look forward to reading that next draft.

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