Chad Wood
10/26/12
Intrinsic Success
As Americans, we are constantly surrounded by misconstrued meanings of
success. In the United States especially, success is most often measured through the
possession of material items and the attainment of an image or higher financial
status. However, true success comes from being happy and having strong
relationships with those closest to you.
In the film “Happy,” Roko Belic does an incredible job of underlying the true
causes of happiness and how that happiness ties into health, longevity, and in turn
success. Belic gives numerous counteractive examples showing how those focused
on extrinsic goals are far less happy than those focused on intrinsic goals. Extrinsic
goals are categorized as dealing with money, image, and material items whereas
intrinsic goals are categorized as dealing with personal growth and family
relationships. In the cities of Japan, young and middle aged workers are literally
working themselves to death in the epidemic known as “Karoshi.” These people are
dying off at incredibly young ages and it’s all due to the amount of stress they endure
day in and day out. However not too far from the Japanese mainland, Okinawa is
known for having more people over the age of 100 than anywhere else in the world.
Belic makes his viewers evaluate why this is, and I have come to understand that it is
due to people’s different ideologies on success. Those dying off from “Karoshi”
believe that success comes from the fulfillment of extrinsic goals while those living
in Okinawa know that success truly comes from the fulfillment of intrinsic goals.
In my last paper, I used an article called “The Burden of Laughter: Chris Rock
Fights Ignorance His Way.” Through this article, I explained how Chris Rock truly
attained both the operational and formal definitions of success. The operational
definition of success is met when someone is happy and healthy and formal success
