I'm not sure whether we're taught to believe it, or it's inherent in this (Swarthmore or otherwise American) culture, but we tend to associate miserableness with success. Being successful means constantly being stressed out and unhappy because being successful means doing lots of things and working hard to do them well without allowing ourselves pleasure.
If you're not running around like a chicken with its head cut off, then you're not doing things right. Success necessitates busyness.
In this vicious culture, we inherently devalue happiness— enjoyment produces guilt. Though we can certainly find value and pleasure in work (and that's a good thing), we have done so by thinking that enjoying life outside of productivity is antithetical to productivity itself.
It took me a while to figure out, but being successful cannot possibly exclude happiness. Being successful cannot possibly be confused for being perpetually miserable. Being successful cannot possibly be doing so much that to feel "good" we need to feel bad.
Success, in fact, means accomplishing things in a way that allows enjoyment both of these accomplishments and of all of life's other little treasures and moments that we often confuse for inconsequential.
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