Conrad Ng Huff

Professor Thomas
UWRT 1104
Inquiry Thesis
What is Success? : An Inquiry Thesis

What is Success? Success is defined by Merriam Webster's Dictionary as favorable or

desired outcome, the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence, or degree or measure of
succeeding. My definition of success cannot be defined by a text book but it includes failing.
Some of the most interesting and inspiring stories are those of success. This is important to me
because my mother came to the United States from the Philippines and it shows how they must
persevere through so much. The architectural world and financial world are also important bt
they have a special place because my father is a civil engineer and designs water systems and
without design or money those would not be able to have the infrastructure that we do today. It
is also important to note that if we do not succeed, then we fail and we gain nothing but
knowledge from failure.
People say that success is measured in if you fail or pass but that should not be the case.
In sports, the success of the team is usually measured if they do well in the season but depending
on the sport the answer will vary. Baseball will tell you that you had a good season by winning
over half of the games and keeping your win percentage above .500. Football will have a good

season by going as close as possible to a perfect season and by winning the division. People say
that they can measure your success but can you really? To every person it varies whether you
should succeed or not. No one can ever fully succeed because if you reach or surpass your
expectations you either have a low limit or your expectations are too low to begin with.
My father has taught me that this is the correct thing to do because this will make me
think over my papers and it makes me kind of paranoid of what the grade will be. By getting the
simple to understand but hard to do concept of not rushing I believe that my writing has gotten
successful and gets better with everything that I turn in. This concept contradicts the daily rush
of life by racing to get to the top but it makes me slow down and micromanage everything that I
do and will do. I think about this teaching every time I feel rushed or stressed out and it helps
me relax and tends to make whatever I am working on better than ever.
In the architectural world and money world there are certain things that need to be
maintained and they need to happen when they are told to happen. In Success and
Understanding by Jean Piaget she talks about building a house of cards and that if everything
does not go just right, it will not be built and it will just fall down over and over again. She
writes, It wont hold the other one up. I think this one (the vertical card) holds up that one. It
shows how easy it is to mess up but at the same time she shows how easy it is to succeed and
surpass your own expectations. It also talks about trying your hardest may not be the right thing
to do because no matter what, in some situations it cannot be achieved unless you take time and
think it out (Piaget).

In the movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, these two businessmen are
brought in and they try to build the best baseball statistically with a limited source of income and
a set budget for the entire team. They end up doing quite well but due to the nature of life and
the erratic things that can happen in anything they do not win the World Series as they had
planned to do. This shows that no matter how much you plan, anything can happen whether
things will turn out for the better or for the worse. This has been attempted many times by many
people and organizations and it tends to finish with the same outcome of failure because nothing
can be totally predicted due to the randomness of life and the infinite possibility of numerous
outcomes. Just because the number work out on paper does not mean that it will always work
out like it did in your mind. When it works out on paper it looks very good at that point but
when those numbers relate to real life, which is a different story that will change depending on
the conditions and number of outside stimuli that are involved.
Going to a real life situation meteorologists used to think that if there was a computer that
was fast enough and had enough memory, they could predict weather for the rest of time until it
ceases to exist. Now we know that all weather patterns cannot be predicted because many of
them are completely predicted. We can see the paths that they may take and follow how it will
go down and then we can make an educated guess on what will happen and when it will happen.
There is not a guaranteed rate of success for this but knowing how they react, we can guess what
will happen and it will usually work out as planned but not all of the time. This also shows the
randomness of all natural events like weather and how a computer will react. Weather can

generally be predicted due to climate and weather patterns due to history and where the area is
placed. This can deter anything from happening or cause many things to happen.
In the real world, no one should be happy where they are in my opinion. It is not bad to
go above and beyond ones limits and surpassing them is not a problem that anyone should face.
People can be happy where they are but they should always strive for greater and better things
because that is the spirit of human nature, to go above and beyond the call of duty. Most people
say that they would feel more successful in life if they made just 10-15% more each year. This
ranged from the common fast food workers to the big bankers on Wall Street. This shows that
people, no matter where they are according to their socio-economic status, are always trying to
reach for bigger and better things all the time. This shows that success is generally defined by
the same definition for most people but their goals that are attained will vary person to person
and will be at different levels for everyone.
Even now I know that just because you finish first doesnt tend to mean that it is the best
that you can do. This goes with most things in life. Dont. Rush. To. Be. First. There is no
such thing as cutting corners in the real world. By doing that, problems will arise that can cause
harm to your reputation or even worse, people. I learned this from a young age because my
father is a civil engineer and if he makes mistakes or cuts corners people could get hurt or even
worse, they could die. If the measurements or even the smallest thing goes wrong it could break
or even poison the water. By learning this lesson early in life I have learned to check everything
AT LEAST two times. Without guidance like this I do not know where I would be today,

probably not as far because I would not take the time to take my time. This shows that just
because you are fast does not mean that you are right.
People always say that failure is not an option, but that is not true. Sometimes it is okay
to fail because without failure we would not have learned from our mistakes and we would not
be where we are today in any type of field. If you're just starting your journey toward success
however you define itor you're wondering what you've been doing wrong until now, you
might find some novel ideas here. The author writes this because it makes you think that the
right thing that you are doing is actually wrong and up until this moment you just have not
realized it. This also means that failing is the worst thing to do and sometimes it is the best thing
to do so that we can learn from past experiences and without doing so we can not learn and
surpass (Scott).
Being the winner is nice, but you dont really know how to win until you lose. Time
comes and goes but memories and lessons are forever. Winning isnt everything but to most
people it is the most important thing and that makes them put the prize above the people who
they hurt. Without losing can we really be called winners, because there is no real success
without any sort of defeat? This is true in a lot of things and when you do not achieve your goal
it makes you appreciate more than if you were just given it and did not work or strive for it.
Being successful is hard but there are many things that people do every day and that they
must be done and these people tend to be nice enough and they share their secret to their own
success. Carry your journal everywhere. Have a few minutes at the cafe between meetings?
Record how the first meeting went, how youre feeling afterward, and what you might have done

differently if you could. This tells you what to do and how to accomplish your own goals and if
you cannot, it will help you do so. Being able to hear from another person can help you achieve
and be able to see you own goals (LaFevre).
Another big topic on success is sexual attraction from other people. When one succeeds,
they tend to be more confident and many people do believe that confidence is very sexy. To
someone looking for a mate when a person is confident, they are seen as successful and that they
have their lives together and that is attractive. Although the self-evaluation maintenance model
has produced a considerable literature, the present research is unique in at least four ways.
This quote shows that you can have one final result but it can be interpreted in many ways.
Being confident is good but too much can make you very unattractive and make you seem cocky
or douchey. The research also showed that some people took this to an extent that was way too
far (American Psychological Association).
Success of immigrants is also very important because America is a country built from
immigration and without it there would be no United States of America. This is very important
to me because my mother is an immigrant from the Philippines and that means that without her
success I would not be able to attend UNCC and be where I am today on an intellectual and
socioeconomic level. Through the history of our country, the immigrants are the ones who set
the basic infrastructure and laws of the land. With the knowledge of the United States being a
melting pot of peoples from different parts of the world we know that this country would not
have succeeded because the immigrants tend to do the jobs that no one wants or no one wants to
do. The author writes We find substantive evidence of sorting across locations. When sorting is

taken into account, living in enclaves improves labor market outcomes for less skilled
immigrants: the earnings gain associated with a standard deviation increase in ethnic
concentration is 13 percent. This means that the do more and work harder than anyone else
because they have more to prove and more to appreciate (Edin).
Success cannot be gauged in if one passes or fails because as Einstein said If we test a
fish by its ability to climb a tree then it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
Knowing this we can see that just because someone is good at something, does not mean that
they are correct. Success is different for everything and that includes different things. Just
because you are good at math does not mean that you will find the cure for cancer. You would
not take a good runner and expect them to perform open heart surgery after watching an
instructional video.

Citations:

Adams, Scott. "Scott Adams' Secret of Success: Failure." The Wall Street Journal.
Dow Jones & Company, 12 Oct. 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.

Arruda, William. "The One Thing Successful People Do Every Day." Forbes. Forbes
Magazine, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.

Edin, Per-Anders, and Peter Fredriksson And. "Per-Anders Edin." Ethnic Enclaves and
the Economic Success of Immigrants-Evidence from a Natural Experiment. N.p., n.d.
Web. 30 Nov. 2016.

Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 2013, Vol. 105, No. 4, 688 702, 2013
American Psychological Association, and 0022-3514/13/$12.00 Doi: 10.1037/a0033.
0022-3514/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0033769 Gender Differences in Implicit SelfEsteem Following a Romantic Partners Success or Failure (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

LaFevre, Rosella. "13 Ways to Use a Journal to Grow in Success." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.

Piaget, Jean. Success and Understanding. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
1978. Print.

@voxeu. "Measuring Success in Economics | VOX, CEPR's Policy Portal." Measuring

Success in Economics | VOX, CEPR's Policy Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.