> Beloved father, husband, son. Forever in our hearts"
was brutally generic but then ...
> He was a good employee
Which is worse than "he was a decent man" [0]. Oof.
A hermit in a cave could similarly be described, but I think any life that makes a positive impact, however small or large, requires something more.
It changes the motivation slightly - great family bonds definitely yes if possible. But I won't care less if tons of other people would come and praise me, or not. I want to be proud of life lived, and I am good enough to judge that. Not harming others to be successful in personal life, happy, balanced person.
Why I don't care that much for opinion of others - ie if you live your life beyond what anybody expected from you, this will produce some envy even in closest peers. They see points where you chose different path to greater success than them, and successes compound over time, hard to avoid regrets there. What a lot of people do in such situation is stopping sharing any info about cool great things happening with practically anybody, in same manner when properly rich live maintain façade of relatively frugal life. Possible, but its caving to want-to-be-liked emotions.
Living life of adventures, exotic travel, extreme sports (in my case, this is what makes me tick and it makes me tick very well).
I am definitely the type that works to live... I mean wasting more life than necessary in the office inevitably leads to regrets later in life, regardless of the amount of wealth. Sometimes learning from others mistakes is enough, especially without save positions available.
[1] https://ernestbecker.org/about-becker/beckers-synthesis/#:~:....
However, if I don't put in the hours now, I might get to enjoy life less because I'll have less resources to do so. (Within reason of course, life really does come first. But work is still important).
People have odd ideas about their amazing historical impact. The way people will remember them, being "on the right side of history".
But 99.9% of people won't really be remembered at all beyond a generation or two, if that. And canned speeches at funerals last for like 10 minutes, certainly not living my life for that.
Those who won't be remembered after a couple generations still shape that next generation that will shape the next generation and so on.
That's closest to immortality you can get.
But, you appear to be making the assumption that the impacts one leaves are the defining features of ones life. It's certainly a valid point of view, but not sure I fully subscribe to it.
Additionally, I doubt my ability to recognize, in sum if an impact is ultimately for good or ill.
You’re not describing what success “is”. You are just describing something then calling it “success”.
The whole setup is like bad Platonic philosophy.
Socrates: what is success?
Useful idiot: Money!
Socrates: Ah, but will your money miss you after you die?
Useful idiot: Wow! Deep!
I don’t think invoking the usually incoherently used word “good” is very helpful.
Why?
I just know that I personally choose to try and not be an asshole.
For me, I define personal success by the impact I have on other people's lives and the imprint I leave on their hearts. Everything else is filler. Undeniably useful - but filler.