What do you want more out of life: happiness or success?
This is one of those questions that always frustrates me because I feel like I have to analyze it from every angle before I can come to a decision. I was complaining about it to my friend earlier this week because I couldn’t think of any way I could turn this into a short story aside from simply answering the question. We both felt like the answer was obvious, but in peak comedic fashion we picked different answers. She said success while I chose happiness.
In her opinion, success would lead to happiness. Therefore, the more successful you are, the happier you will be. I don’t know that I inherently believe that. I’ve known plenty of incredibly miserable successful people. I think happiness is its own success.
Of course, as I sit here thinking about this, it occurs to me I was interpreting it wrong from the start. The question has nothing to do with whether one is more important than the other. All it asks is which do you want more of? It doesn’t change my answer, I still wish more for happiness than success, but it doesn’t exclude one or the other. It is possible to have both.
This seems like it would be a good question for a Hogwarts Sorting quiz. The weighting would be Hufflepuff and Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw and Slytherin, I think. The minimal evidence that led me to this particular conclusion is the fact that she, a Slytherin, chose success while I, a Hufflepuff, chose happiness.
This does have me wondering where my characters align though. Hmm, let’s see.
Lara: Happiness
Shane: Success
Midge: Success
Ali: Happiness
Sayuri: Success
Mika: Success used to drive her, but I think now she leans more towards a desire for happiness
Kita: Happiness
Leo: Success
Todd: Success
Fae: Success
Ral: Happiness (not gonna lie, this one kind of surprises me)
Jack: Happiness
Tar: Success
It’s interesting. I thought for sure a majority of my characters were driven by a desire for happiness, but it turns out they’re more success-driven. Good to know. It’s worth it to think on your own characters and figure out how they would answer this question.
Unfortunately, that’s about all I have to say on this prompt. I hope you have a great rest of your night and an easy Friday. I’ll see you same time tomorrow night with the final prompt of the week. Expect another rambling, ranting post like this one. Night!
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Closet Full of Notebooks 