Green | February 10, 2009 | 9 comments

Addicted to success?

source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123423234983566171.html

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Are you addicted to success?

"Like a drug, professional success can induce a feeling of ecstasy that quickly feels essential. Recapturing that feeling can require greater and greater feats, a phenomenon that -- more than simple greed -- explains the drive for ever-larger bonuses and conquests. "With riches, success and fame ... you find that greater and greater doses of your 'upper' are needed to become 'high,' " David Burns, a Stanford University psychiatrist and pioneer of cognitive behavioral therapy, writes in his 1980 book "Feeling Good."

Often reinforcing the achievement cycle are colleagues who share the view that large bonuses, medical breakthroughs or great works of journalism are the only important measures of worth. One solution -- simpler in theory than execution -- is to broaden one's circle of friends and colleagues.

One of the biggest fears for holders of respected positions is the potential loss of public esteem. Therapists say the high achiever often holds self-defeating double standards, feeling sympathetic toward the unemployed while assuming that unemployment would bring him only shame."
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9 comments // Addicted to success?

  • ejasun
    • 0
      ejasun  
    • Image

    • Obsession/Failure/Success stress, and sheer obsession with one single idea. ...

      Psychology of Success

      What is the difference between passion and obsession? For starters, an obsession is usually an act that you are always (and sometimes uncontrollably) preoccupied with. A passion, on the other hand, is a strong love that can be the pathway to a healthy relationship or to a harmful obsession.

      http://www.devgrow.com/development/the-psychology-of-success-part-1-obsession/

      So, how obsessed should a writer get? What if your novel never sees the light of day, or a bookshelf outside your house? What if your poem only speaks to you?

      Is it all worth it then?

      How do we know that our endings will include a certain amount of vindication, a certain amount of rueful bliss?

      We don’t.

      But if we are real writers, real verbal inventors, we have to allow ourselves to obsess, to lock ourselves in the basement or the attic, and leave our loved ones to their own devices.

      Our very survival depends on it.

      And we can only hope that someone will still be waiting for us when we return.
      http://eliot.stlwritersguild.org/wordpress/?p=280

    • 4 years ago
  • estoppel
    • 0
      estoppel  

    • Especially in this time when layoff is shaking and stirring our job stability, white- and blue-collars alike need success more than they ever had to entrench their work position. So will I risk being a lifeless, workaholic, success-junkie douchebag so I can pay my bills, and make sure that the people I'm taking care of live well? Yes, I will.

      Competition is mushrooming, ass-kissing is profound, and backstabbing prevails; it's a sad fuck-you-I'm-first depression we have to abide.

    • 4 years ago
  • metalcookiesxy70
  • rickm8
    • 0
      rickm8  

    • you must remember, if you become addicted to success and make too much money mr. obama will take it from you, and you will be regarded as a demon because there are people without jobs, yet you have money because you worked hard....
      our country is sad **sigh**

    • 4 years ago
  • cerealforeal
  • ClareW
    • 0
      ClareW  

    • I think an addiction to success is definately one of the safer things to be addicted to... unless it gets in the way of family life, relationships etc

    • 4 years ago
  • oliholmes
  • hersheleh
  • apoc
    • 0
      apoc  

    • While large bonuses do make me feel good, it's mainly because of the money and not the feat of success associated with it.

    • 4 years ago
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