How does an individual’s definition of needs and wants influence his/her notion of success?

If you had to give and example of countries where people are happy and satisfied with their life what would be the answer? Successful countries such as USA, Japan, China or maybe somewhere in Europe? Well according to a 2003 World value survey of people in 65 nations was published in the British magazine New Scientist. The survey results show that world's happiest countries with the most satisfied people are Puerto Rico and Mexico, and those with the most optimistic people are Nigeria and Mexico. What does this say about successful countries? The people’s definition of needs and wants are different, since in most cases success brings happiness there are other factors such as their position in social status, materialistic wealth and their own ego which greatly influence his/her concept of success.

 An individual’s social status in society has a significant impact on one’s concept of success. “Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you” as quoted by Jay-Z. The norm is that the higher your social status the likelier you are to be successful in life. We can even see a real life example of this happening in India. Apparently in India social status have been strongly reinforced for more than 3000 years and it does affect most areas even today. These carefully ranked inherited divisions of society are known as Castes. The highest status one can achieve is called Brahman, they consists of priests and teachers. The second highest would be the Kshatriya, which are the rulers, warriors and landowners. Third and fourth would be Vaishya and Shudra, which mainly consists of farmers, merchants and laborers. The lowest caste identity are called the Scheduled Castes, these are the poorest people who woks as polluted laborers whose job is sweeping streets, cleaning toilets; etc. As you can see there is a significant difference in occupation in priests and polluted laborers, furthermore they are categorized as the highest and lowest status in a society so this example sort of justifies the norm in which the higher your social status is the more successful you are.

Wealth is something all of us naturally desire, in most cases this will be the key factor for the majority of society in measuring how successful someone is. From Bill gates who has a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars and owning mansions all over the world, Oprah Winfrey who has her own Television show and is donating her wealth regularly to American citizens, to Mark Zuckerberg who co-invented the ever popular social networking site Facebook, as of 2011 his personal wealth was estimated to be $17.5 billion making him one of the world's youngest billionaires. These people have one thing in common, a form of materialistic wealth in which people consider as being “successful”. Another example would be Singapore which is the richest country in Asia with $62,100 GDP per capita according to http://www.aneki.com/asia_richest.html, this data creates a natural feeling causing people to call Singapore a successful country. All in all there must be some kind of noticeable evidence of material wealth which would naturally influence one’s thinking of it being successful or not.

Last but not least is their own ego, ego referring to a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance. A characteristic of a person with a huge ego would be “having a strong tendency to talk about themselves in a self-promoting fashion, and they may well be arrogant and boastful with a grandiose sense of their own importance. Their inability to recognize the accomplishments of others leaves them profoundly self-promoting; while sensitivity to criticism may lead on the egotist's part to narcissistic rage at a sense of insult” Kowalski ed., p. 111-121. Most of the time being successful means having a large ego, however this is not true in some cases. Some lower class people are content and happy with their life yet hey still call themselves as being “successful”. For example about a year ago I went to Ngawi village in Surabaya, Indonesia they live on wooden houses and has less than $2 of income everyday but when I talked to them they don’t show any signs of discomfort or dissatisfaction in their life, probably because they are used to it but this means that the greater your wealth is the higher potential for your ego to grow as well. Since there are many things you can do with wealth, but then there are people who don’t need wealth and consider it as a want. These people with a lower ego would be happy being “successful” in their own way.

All of the above explains how social status, materialistic wealth and how a person’s ego influence their concept of success. But then again is being successful enough? As we know humans have a natural desire to want everything and anything they desire, each and everyone’s needs and wants are different this makes being successful unique in each person’s own needs and wants.