There are many people in today’s society who have consulted a psychologist over a lack of success. “I have so much potential. I just want to make a success out of my life.”

For some reason or another these people can’t find their own path to success; they keep hitting barriers; nothing ever goes their way. The media, too, dedicates serious space to the importance of success in in everyday life. “Why do extremely successful people swear by this 5- minute daily habit?” “Do successful CEO’s sleep less?”

Today being ‘successful’ takes centre stage; in the Middle Age the word didn’t even exist. Success in the 16th century meant “to follow or succeed something”; in other words, something happens if I do this. To distinguish oneself as ‘successful’, and therefore superior to others, was simply not possible, writes Enrich Fromm. “Today, we have the feeling that ‘success’ must be one of the oldest words in the history of mankind” But in previous times, to say someone was ‘successful’ was a s nonsensical as calling them ‘purple’.

"Concepts such as 'success', which appear to us to be natural in our language, are purely sociologically conditioned concepts that exist just as infrequently in many other societies as the concept 'exploitation'," writes Fromm. The word 'successful' is a key term for describing humans in our competitive individualistic culture as it keeps people striving, bettering, competing, and working- activities that are necessary for the social structure to survive and prosper. Indeed, 'success metrics are good for the economy but not so good for the human soul.

- Jacques Ellul, New Philosopher, Issue 11 Technology and Your Brain