True success can be measured primarily in terms of the goals one sets for oneself

To claim that a true success can be assessed chiefly by taking the goals one set for oneself, is an oversimplification. Although the goals behind successes are important, there are different aspect which regarding the situation, take precedence over evaluating the goals.

To begin with, many are counterexamples attesting that having a good intention toward a victory is not a considerable matter, when a damaging measure is taken toward that triumph. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, is the proverb summarizing my point. The unjustifiable acts have been done by the human beings which even their presumably good intentions cannot justify them. Consider those who advocate the success of the United States of America in World War II say that U.S.A’s aim was only to finish the World War. Of course, termination of genocides in the World War is merited. But ending of a war cannot be a true success when it is achieved by turning 129.000 people into ashes by atomic bombing toward the victory of the U.S.A.. Therefore the means of attainment of a purpose is a preponderating factor than is what primarily aimed per se.

Secondly, a true success is measured also by assessing what benefits go to whom_ whatever was the purpose of the achiever. In this sense, consider many researchers who made huge accomplishments out of serendipity. In discoveries and inventions, the researcher who is in search of answering a question, accidentally finds an answer to another question. For instance, uranium salts which spontaneously emit lights, accidentally darkened the negative films and was discovered by Henri Becquerel. While he was not intended to find this phenomena, can we not attribute a true success to his discovery which further made X-ray photography possible? Indeed we can, since the benefits of all the human beings of this discovery is important, rather than what was the intention of its discoverer.

However, the author is not entirely wrong in claiming that goals are an important factor behind any true success. A veneer of success, shatters when it is divulged that one has set a selfish and a dishonest aim for oneself. Becoming a doctor, for instance, is a success in having a career, since it takes a long time for one to become a doctor. But, where one who is becoming a doctor only recognize patients as costumers to derive money from, the goal here undermines the success because it is selfish and inhuman. Therefore, we see that to evaluate a goal we should take into consideration a set of different factors.

In short, as discussed, when a goal is succeed, there are different aspects that we should take into account. Besides evaluating the goal behind a success, we should also analyze the measures taken toward to realize a goal, and also evaluate what benefits gets to whom after it is accomplished.