Success, a Synthesis

Winston Churchill, the British statesman, orator, writer, artist and Prime Minister during World War II, once said: “My education was interrupted only by my schooling.” As one of the outstanding heroes of the 20^th century, Churchill was well-known for his unique characteristics, which can be summarized as resourceful, courageous, decisive, intrepid and warlike. Although Churchill himself had the potential for developing these traits from the time he was born, it was indeed during his schooling that his traits were incubated and discovered.

Education is a necessary experience that all of us have to go through; during this period of time, we receive formal knowledge, appropriate manners, as well as learn to engage in critical thinking, which can then be applied to certain situations later on in life. Schooling, however, can be viewed as taking place in an intermediary palace that provides the exclusive environmental condition which takes us from being naïve, immature beings to mature, socially capable adults. This is, because we not only acquire knowledge associated, for example, with everyday technologies from text books, but more importantly learn how to interact and communicate with other people through building up a network of friendships, possible only in this special location. For those who furthered their education outside this palace, they can only achieve conceptual successes, which can later on manifest as expanding financial power, fame and reputation. However, their successes lack vital ingredients that can make a huge difference in people who have experienced schooling. Without a network of friendship, works of these self-made people might fail to spread out. The lack of mature social skills and network-based problem solving tactics can further cause these self-made people to be resented by others who are not as successful and who envy them. Schooling does not necessarily have to interrupt education. Yet, the experience of it often is felt as a sudden awakening that comes with noticing the dimensions and impact of the social network.

Moreover, it is not only the environmental condition, the palace as it were, that plays an important role in contributing to our future successes. Various studies have shown that the proper engagement of a pessimistic, critical way of thinking is also influential in our becoming more competitive in this very selective 21st century. Being open to a pessimistic assessment of a difficult situation helps us to confront this complication, allows us to think deeply about the problem as well as to eventually find a resolution. A pessimistic attitude when being faced by difficulties can further guide us to avoid the deadly failure of naïve optimism by forcing us to view possible negative outcomes fully and at the same time realistically. Thus, the practice of a pessimistic, critical way of thinking can help us to reinforce a positive attitude in our education, career, and life, while schooling, which provides a good network of friendships, enables us to test and improve our critical thoughts in a relevant context.

We make friends at school. Regardless of the fact that introverts make fewer contacts, while extroverts make more, we all need to have friends to talk to, to listen to, in order to live truly and authentically. Moreover, better schools provide a higher quality of education by attracting better prepared and more diverse students who achieve more and so accelerate education among their peers via their influence on the social network. As a result, we can imagine that attending a really good school allows us to meet people who are not only highly gifted and already advanced in their education but also critically different and so influential and stimulating in their network. Further, success is never an individual event; rather, it is a chain effect where the variables of faster advancing education and greater diversity of the student network mutually influence each other.

Indeed, working with a diverse group of friends who hold common goals can help us in exchanging ideas, in developing profound thoughts and in achieving a more comprehensive view in regard to a project. For example, Bill Gates, perhaps the richest man in the world, not only propelled himself to the point of a miraculous success, but also helped his friends who he met during his time of schooling. In 1973, Bill Gates attended Harvard College – possibly the most stimulating of all palaces, where he met two of the most important people in his life, Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer. Paul Allen, who served as a co-worker with Gates in writing the world famous Microsoft DOS computer operating system, eventually became one of the influential billionaires of the world. Steve Ballmer, who was hired by Bill Gates as an assistant after they met at Harvard College, was later ranked 43^rd richest person on Forbes 2008 World’s Richest People. He now holds the leading position at Microsoft. Warren Buffett and President Barack Obama are two further, powerful examples that even more illustrate these two critical aspects: education and the importance of a network of friendship that we can build during schooling. Warren Buffett, who attended Columbia Business School and had his start in the GEICO insurance company afterwards through the help of a famous security analyst by the name of Benjamin Graham. It is no surprise that Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett met at no other place but the Columbia School of Business. Buffett became famous for his financial prowess in his position as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. President Barack Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988, where he later was elected as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, gaining attentions from many. As we can see, the network of friendship that a school can offer, adds a huge advantage to our chance of being successful in the future. Within this network of friendship, the use of a critical approach that fully allows for a pessimistic assessment which does not overwhelm and hinder the work towards solutions, can be learned, practiced and engaged in. It contributes to our future successes on a larger scale.

A problem that is confronted by critical, pessimistic thinking may not be as deadly in its final outcome, as one confronted by naïve, optimistic thinking. The common belief in the power of positive, optimistic thinking when facing challenges definitely contrasts with the reality that opens up when a critical, pessimistic way of thinking is employed in the same situation. According to a study by Brickman and coworkers in 1976: only under certain conditions, do students, imbued by positive thoughts driven by optimism, perform better than students who are open to negative thoughts that are enabled by pessimism. These certain conditions were: “First, these thoughts must be relevant to the task to be performed. Second, subjects must form explicit or implicit expectancies for how well they will perform on the impending task before they engage in it” (Goodhart 119). This study can be understood to show the limits of the use of an optimistic way of thinking and the need to incorporate pessimistic assessment when broader contexts need to be considered. Optimistic thinking is not always helpful, pessimistic thinking does not always lead to depression either.

Then, how can it be understood that a pessimistic way of thinking can be helpful? As supported by scholars, “The word pessimism came into widespread use only in the nineteenth century, but it clearly names a persistent thought or set of thoughts that has recurred often in social and political theory since the Enlightenment in tandem with its opposite” (Dienstag 923). Moreover, how can we prove that the practice of pessimistic, critical way of thinking increases our chances to be successful, while the participation of schooling plays a big role in this at the same time? According to a study that was done in 1929 by Herbert Jasper, “there seems to be a positive relationship between the degree of intellectual sophistication present in a college environment and the degree of pessimism in social attitudes and the degree of depression in personality traits” (873). Therefore, a critical, pessimistic way of thinking can be seen as essential in development of sophisticated problem-solving which allows the utilization of broader contexts when confronted by a challenge.

Sophisticated problem-solving in the context of a deep support network, incubated in the intermediary palace of a capable college unleashes creative energy and so provides the condition for success. The example of Winston Churchill illustrates this resilient energy in the face of overwhelming challenges. The attack on Great Britain must have led to many pessimistic assessments of the future. However, in the end, for Churchill, it meant to stand up, find a solution and free the world of a murderous regime. This success granted the continued existence of a free world.