The Success-Happiness paradox 

In a month I turn 30. A good time to introspect and think back on what my 20s have been about. After all, it’s 10 years of what is touted to be the “adventurous 20s”. Well, it’s been about a lot of that, both professionally and personally.

I’ve lived in 2 continents, traveled to 30 countries, changed 2 jobs and have met some fascinating people. I’ve fallen in and out of love. I’ve scuba dived and got myself a tattoo. I’ve discussed politics, economy and culture with Ministers of Finance from different countries. Yes, it’s definitely been a great decade from an “achievements” POV.

But this decade has also been about a lot of questions - for some I've managed to come up with answers while for others I'm still searching for the right answers, or at least those answers which I think are right. Its also been a decade of learning some hard lessons, some heart breaks and many decision points. Not at that moment, of course, but in retrospect these tough times are the ones which have really shaped my thinking, strengthened me and have ultimately made me who I am today.

One question, however, has been on my mind for long. And that is, “what is success and how does one measure it?” When I was at the World Bank, I would often hear my friends say that I was successful. Subsequently, I joined the Boston Consulting Group. Apparently, I was “more” successful now. While this was always good to hear, I couldn't understand why only professional gains and money were used as metrics for success.

In order to get some clarity on this issue, I began asking the question “what is success to you?” to a lot of people - I would also bring it up at parties and get togethers, just to increase my sample size! I've come to realize that people define success very differently. Some feel meeting targets at work is success, others believe that becoming rich is success. However, despite these different definitions, the running theme is the same - being successful is invariably linked to money and professional gains.

Two things bother me about this: 1) why aren't personal accomplishments indicative of success - for example, how often have we heard the phrase, “she’s a successful mother”? and; 2) why aren't success and happiness correlated? I know many (professionally) successful individuals who are immensely unhappy. Because success is often so narrowly understood and believed, I notice a kind of sadness even in people who may love what they are doing but often don't feel like they're a success in life.

I love behavioral economics and other psychological studies which shed light on human behavior. I remember reading a BBC article about people often confusing success and happiness. The article quotes an interesting study by Christopher Hsee of the Chicago School of Business (excerpt below) which concluded that since people cannot define or quantify happiness, they sometimes tend to warp what makes them happy by trying to achieve quantifiable success metrics.

“Hsee’s study was based around a simple choice: participants were offered the option of working at a 6-minute task for a gallon of vanilla ice cream reward, or a 7-minute task for a gallon of pistachio ice cream. Under normal conditions, less than 30% of people chose the 7-minute task, mainly because they liked pistachio ice cream more than vanilla. For happiness scholars, this isn't hard to interpret –those who preferred pistachio ice cream had enough motivation to choose the longer task. But the experiment had a vital extra comparison. Another group of participants were offered the same choice, but with an intervening points system: the choice was between working for 6 minutes to earn 60 points, or 7 minutes to earn 100 points. With 50-99 points, participants were told they could receive a gallon of vanilla ice cream. For 100 points they could receive a gallon of pistachio ice cream. Although the actions and the effects are the same, introducing the points system dramatically affected the choices people made. Now, the majority chose the longer task and earn the 100 points, which they could spend on the pistachio reward – even though the same proportion (about 70%) still said they preferred vanilla.” In the quest to earn the "reward" (pistachio), people let go/forgot what originally made them happy (vanilla)!

Thus, if I were asked what is my one life’s learning in the past decade, I’d say (and I don't want to preach or sound pedantic, this is merely my opinion) - define multiple “success points” in life across different aspects (professional, personal, financial…), both qualitative and quantitative, and feel the joy of meeting each of those self expectations. To me, success is not an all encompassing term. There are multiple success stations on my life's journey. And there is a massive correlation between success and happiness, for me. If I love what I'm doing, I'm usually good at it and, therefore, successful.