The word "successful" has become a synonym for "making" a lot of money. The sports stars making tons of cash are presented as "successful". The famous singers are presented as "successful". Arnold Schwarzenegger himself has adopted this definition. If it makes money, the modern society considers it "successful"'. How sweet....
If a young boy tells his mother than he wants to be a philosopher (not that this will ever happen) she would look at him and say: "Hey, get real. When was the last time you saw a philosopher on the cover of Forbes magazine?" On the other hand if you want to become a footballer it's perfectly fine because footballers make tons of money and everybody is willing to suck their dicks.
Activities that don't make money are not only discouraged but they are also not respected. If your bank account does not have a big dick, you are not successful. In fact, you are labeled as a loser and hater. If you are not making a lot of money from what you are doing, your self-worth is considered to be low.
In reality, however, money does not equal true success. There are many people with money who are successful only in satisfying their own narcissism. This brings me to the story of Franz Kafka.
Franz Kafka is one of those writers nobody heard of when he was alive. He became famous after his death. He actually wanted his works to be burned after he is gone. However, luckily his will was not respected and pretty fast his writings spread over the entire globe. His style is a little crazy to say the least. He uses a lot of metaphors which have dual, if not triple meaning. What's interesting about him is that he didn't do it for the money. He did it simply because he wanted to. If he was alive today, most people were probably going to label him as a loser because he was not making money by selling his books. He was unknown.
That only reveals that success today (and in the past actually) has become a cheap word used by businessman who like to screw over clients. A few months ago the famous rapper 50 Cent started posting online comments saying how successful he was for selling millions of Reebok sneakers. It's all about money. 50 Cent seems to completely ignore the fact that all Reebok shoes are made in sweatshops and the workers get paid USD 1 dollar a day. There are kids working over-time in factories while 50 Cent is bitching about how much money he's made by working for the same company. Is exploitation success? The same stays true for fags like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates...etc.
Some celebrities actually realize all of this. Many wonder why famous and rich people kill themselves. It's simple - some of them are not so stupid and see through the fakeness and the shallowness and simply cannot live with themselves. As a results they commit a crime against their soul and kill themselves.
Money is not bad. We make it bad. There is enough money for everybody, but we have been conditioned to accept exploitation as normal and to label poor people as losers. I am not anti-working hard for your money. Not at all. It's needed. What I am against is making money the ONLY measure for success. It's part of the picture but will never be the essence.