The Cost of Success

We all define success in different terms. For many people, especially men, success often seems to be measured in terms of prosperity and influence. The world tells us to work hard, pay our dues, make sacrifices and the American dream of prosperity and financial security can be ours. True enough, there is ample opportunity in this country for most people to realize their American dream in those terms. However, far too often people sacrifice their families in the pursuit of that success. We rationalize that we’re doing it for them, but when our work focus nudges our loved ones aside it can become self-serving and, in the end, it preys on the very people we intended it to benefit. Some people can balance work and home, but there are always choices and trade offs to make in that balancing act. When we begin to trade our families for financial success we might need to take a step back to reexamine our priorities. We can argue that the money is all for them, but in the end real love is always spelled T.I.M.E. When men become the CEO or the Chairman of the Board, but lose their wives or estrange themselves from their children what have they really accomplished. Clearly none of us are perfect, but we all need to take a step back now and again to reconsider our priorities. Otherwise we may find ourselves so entangled in our lives outside the home that we can become strangers to it. As an example of this point I’m going to make it personal by sharing an excerpt from my own father’s unpublished memoirs:

“… in 1967, I began to realize that my business interests and activities, coupled with politics, had led me to increasingly give away more and more of my time and of myself to other people and other causes. Due to the fact that my children were perfect and my wife was a saint, it was so much easier to let other people influence me into these activities for the good of one cause or another, and the most important one of all to me, was to be sufficiently successful so that I could provide for them in an appropriate way. We had been moving up the ladder financially due to these efforts, but that began to look shallow to me compared to the lack of time I was able to spend with them … By early 1968 I was of a mind to sever our marital ties, simply on the grounds that she, being a few years younger than me, could find a husband she deserved a great deal more. It was not a desire to be noble, but I did recognize that I had involved myself in a web of commitments to so many people, in both business and politics, that it would not be easy to extricate myself. I finally convinced her that this was the appropriate thing to do, although she never really agreed to it. And I was acting substantially against the advice of my then closest friend, a prominent Newport Beach psychiatrist who convinced me I either had to give up everything else in order to do right by my family or turn aside to my dreams of being able to be more successful for their benefit. Rightly or wrongly, I chose to secure a divorce.”

So, you see, even in my own family the lure of success and outside commitments became stronger than the bond of commitments at home … even though the family was the initial reason for all of the hard work and outside commitments. In my case I see it as all having worked out for the best, but divorce affects each person differently and also creates a legacy we pass on to our children. They are the unwilling heirs of our success and failure on the home front. In order to illustrate a different perspective, I offer a poem which was written by my younger brother, Scott Carpenter. This poem captures eloquently a recurring dream he had when he was younger and offers valuable insight into a child’s perspective on the choices some people make in order to achieve their particular brand of success.

The Vat
When I was six I had a dream
that my dad took my mom and me
to the warehouse where men work.
It was all dark except for one door
in the side where you could walk out.
In the middle were some stairs that
led up to a giant vat of waste or acid
or something, and at the top of the stairs
partly in the dark stood the devil.
No one said anything but I knew that if
my dad jumped into the vat then the devil
would let my mom and me go free.
The last thing I remember was my dad
standing up on the stairs next to the devil
looking down into the giant vat, and I
remember my mom and I just stood there
silently, staring at their shadows and the vat.
My mom and I got away so he must have
jumped in. I guess he must be a hero.

That was when my dad left home for good.
He didn't really die. That was only a dream.
And He didn't really jump into the vat
of industrial waste. He just had work to do.
Now that I'm grown up I still have the dream
sometimes. When I wake I think about how
quiet and normal it seemed around the devil.
The warehouse isn't so scary or strange.
And now I have a little boy of my own.
He comes to visit me at the office sometimes.
I give him candy and let him play at my desk.
I still haven't told him about the vat.
By Scott Carpenter

When we look at it from that perspective, it reminds us of how our choices affect other people and how their perspectives thereon may be entirely different. We all have our lives to live and many of us are already living with the consequences of decisions which may or may not have brought about the results we desired. What I do know is that our spouses and children are the most precious commodities we possess and we must carefully consider anything which might trade away some part of them, or our relationships with them, for the promise of success … even if they are the intended beneficiaries thereof. In the end what our families desire more than all the stuff in the world is our hearts. We must not, therefore, allow our hearts to become divided.

In conclusion, I hope and pray that we all might weigh our priorities and make our decisions accordingly. I certainly have not done everything right, not by a long shot. However, I would not trade the love of my wife or the respect of my children for any material thing on this earth. We don’t have a lot of stuff, but in the true essentials of life I’m the richest man I know. Each of us must choose our own path, but let us always keep in mind the potentially high cost of success … and the immeasurable value of the loved ones who will share it with us.