The First Attribute for Success

If you look on YouTube under “how to use Facebook,” you will find the 10 rules for success by Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs and The Donald amongst others. The first rule touted by all is to be passionate about what you do or to have a passion for something. Warren Buffet began investing at seven. Can you picture Warren Buffet passionately munching on his Dairy Queen Dip Cone?

But then what is passion? The word calls to mind an array of images from the maudlin to the dangerous. You can fly into a passion and make people fear you or you can be passionate about someone or something only to find out they or it have no idea you exist. Mutual passion is rare and fleeting. Still your number one requirement for success is this attribute.

Once an ex-friend stood in front of a battle scarred mess on my easel and exclaimed “You have JOY when you paint”. I immediately felt homicidal.

However, my calm response was “No I don’t”. She reiterated: “Yes you do! I can see it in the painting”. We went back and forth in this game until I said firmly: “Back away from the painting”.

Admittedly I experience elation and a brief peace of mind when a painting is truly finished and I have succeeded in bringing it near to that ineffable inner aesthetic whose favorite sentence is “ No! That is wrong! Take it off and do it over”.

According to the above “experts,” the reason one must have passion is to be able to persist when the going gets tough. Is this really true?

I actually think that it is difficulty itself that causes one to persist because it is human nature to not know when to quit. I am compelled to fix the mistakes I made yesterday with better ones. It is a perfect equation for continuity.

The key is perpetual dissatisfaction. I posit that those who feel happy (or passionate) when they work will have a harder time continuing. Since they can be satisfied at the end of a day, they believe they can rest. I suspect that this form of moderate gratification is the enemy of dogged persistence. One must feel an inner disappointment to be compelled to continue.

The other key ingredient is that a solution to the problem must be known to some degree but be hard to access. An ideal version of what I am at work on hovers specter-like near my left temple, allowing me to see where the painting I have already painted over fifty-seven times is falling short and offering just enough chance of forward momentum to prevent paralysis and despair.

As I was writing it dawned on me that I might briefly elaborate on what success is. Enlightened liberal culture has replaced the hierarchical with the relative. Success is internal, personal, as in one man’s discarded cardboard box is another man’s castle. (Note: I use the masculine when I speak of mankind because I would prefer to have been one.)

It is unlikely that the acknowledged benchmarks in a particular field are of little value to a person who operates on the maniacal end of the scale. I cannot pretend that having no savings is of no account, that I couldn’t care less about being in the Whitney Biennial, or that I never feel the tiniest pang of envy when MacArthur geniuses are announced. Still I am successfully balancing on the cusp of losing it all. I have not gotten side tracked or wiped out. I may be painting myself into a corner, but I will be sure to draw in a door.

Hope continues to triumph over experience. All facetiousness aside, do I agree with these wildly successful gentlemen? I would say it does not matter.

Gabrielle Bakker, October 14, 2015    

*Samuel Johnson on Marriage.