Success for the 21st Century

When discussing Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman in AP Lit today, we covered the fact that the three primary male characters in Act I have a success problem: they don't have it because they can't define it. They are lost, gripping flawed assumptions, unclear about what they want or how to get it. In a writing activity, I asked students to write about someone who they view as successful, explain the criteria for success that they were using, and choose characteristics that they wished to emulate as they chase their own dream of success throughout lifetime.

I enjoyed hearing my students' answers (all except the one who wrote about Oprah). Though the definitions of success varied, we did seem to agree on one thing: defining success is a somewhat difficult process.

Then came the question: "Mr. Dykstra, what's your definition of success?"

My response was profound: "Umm. My definition? Of success? It's . . . well . . . Sorry. We're out of time for discussion today. Maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow." A difficult question indeed.

Then I remembered a Jonathan Edwards sermon I recently read. The sermon was actually a message for a funeral Edwards was conducting for John Stoddard, his uncle. Stoddard had been a  major figure in the community, and Edwards clearly thought a lot about him. Reading my notes from the sermon, I see that Edwards' descriptors for Stoddard are as good a definition of living a successful life as any I've encountered.

Consider these qualities and quotes from the sermon:

• Knowledge through focus and dedication: "And as his natural capacity was great, so was the knowledge that he had acquired, his understanding being greatly improved by his close application of mind to those things he was called to be concerned in, and by a very exact observation of them and long experience in them."
• Patient and humble in learning. Steadfast in truth: "He was not wavering and unsteady in his opinion: his manner was never to pass judgment rashly, but was wont first thoroughly to deliberate and weigh an affair; and in this, notwithstanding his great abilities, he was glad to improve by the help of conversation and discourse with others, and often spake of the great advantage he found by it; but when, on mature consideration, he had settled his judgment, he was not easily turned from it by false colors and plausible pretences and appearances."
• "And how immovably steadfast was he to exact truth!"
• Respected by others, focused on God: But though he was one that was great among men, exalted above others in abilities and greatness of mind and in place of rule, and feared not the faces of men, yet he feared God.
• Revered by hist most important audience: The calmness and steadiness of his behavior in private, particularly in his family, appeared remarkable and exemplary to those who had most opportunity to observe it.
• Reverent and capable of awe: He abhorred profaneness, and was a person of a serious and decent spirit, and ever treated sacred things with reverence.

May this be said of me at my end, three hundred years later. For this is a life well-lived in all times.