In this article I will share my own prospective on achievements. What things are I consider as achievements, what I do not. What Is nature of achievements, what do I mean when I say “Achievements Speak Louder Than Words”.
Achievements refers to something extraordinary, difficult done by an individual. They are objective, personal, have instrumental value and speak louder than words.
Achievement is a milestone towards success but not success in itself.
All achievements are personal. Even in cases of collective achievements like winning in a war, research, it’s individuals who, in the end, achieved it. Hence they are one whom credit should be given.
There are no objective basis of giving credit to intermediaries, however that doesn’t mean their contributions should not be acknowledged. It is up to achiever if he wants to acknowledge them or not.
True achievements speak louder than words. That means they are objective and hold way more value than words, intermediary actions. They can be measured through objective lenses including standardized tests, leaderboard, ratios.
This includes achievements of one’s nation, achievements of friends, of one’s community, of ancestors, which is described in section below.
Because one nation is not a “reward” of hard work, it’s just random event. IF someone legally immigrates to any other country, that still wouldn’t make him eligible to take credit of achievements of that nation. In that case, only achievement would be of successfully immigrating.
Similar to the achievements in which one plays no role, but the reason it’s a separate section because unfortunately, lot of people take pride in what their alleged ancestors achieved. Instead, such people should be asking themselves, “My ancestors achieved so much, but why I have not achieved having despite having supposedly”superior” genes. Because, if I had any, I wouldn’t resort this”.
My own ancestors had many achievements, which I won’t be discussing here. My skin is paler than average countryman. My last name, Sethi, literally translates to “Superior”. Or “It is derived from Sanskrit šreṣtbdot;hī , which denotes the head of a mercantile or other guild.” Oxford Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, 2022, p. 2645
But I simply acknowledge them. I do not take any pride in it. Not only because it’s illogical, but also because I have plenty of my own achievements, which I earned on my own.
These includes many things like certificate of participation, self proclaimed achievements, word of mouth without any objective basis.
Including achievements in video games, an invention with no practical applications, idea that’s too utopian.
This can include various things like cheating in exams, inheritance, trying to gain Github achievements by gaming system,
Unlike in other sections, examples in this section might not be objective. As some of them involve ethical issues. They might have many answers depending on the context. Or some may be objective too. This is a long debated issue in philosophy.
However by saying this, I am not contradicting my earlier statement of achievements being objective. For example, the marks obtained by cheating in exams would still be interpretable through objective lenses.
One of the objective one, Github achievements, is described below.
A lot of people I have observed try to game the system by creating private repositories, sending pull requests to own repository from a different branch and more.
But these achievements then become tainted.
Notice that inaccessible error message, that they were achieved by someone who attempted to game the system, but ended up getting permanently gamed by it, as achievements can not be re-earned.
Similarly, I could also do the same, but I choose to not too. I prefer to earn them legitimately and also because I don’t like games, as I described in my previous article too!
Additionally, some of the achievements like YOLO, which is awarded after merging a pull request without review, is a bad practice. It’s not something to be proud of but to be ashamed of, at least to me. So, I will try not to achieve it.
Success is defined by individual, hence there is no objective definition of it. While achievements are objective, success is no. Success is not just collection of achievements, but it includes other things too including satisfaction, personal development, experience which is impossible to measure objectively.
For example, for me achieving so much at the age of 18, writing this article, despite having all odds against me is a big success for me and I am satisfied. For someone who does not know about my circumstances, have not read my articles, might not consider me as successful as I consider myself, but we both can agree on objective achievements like 25% in equity, 865/~8000 rank in entrance exam, member count of my groups etc. Gaining that high rank without formal education, reservations is also a big success to me, but again, how do we measure the circumstances? How do we assign weights to them objectively? There are countless variables that are impossible to know, let even measure objectively, life is inherently unfair.
Some of the true achievements include:
Original contributions to body of knowledge.
Something extraordinary, uncommon, difficult and original
Something that has an instrumental value
I do not read much original philosophical works, so I can't speak much on it. However from my research, these ideas are similar to mine.
So I would just like to end this article by reminding again that these are my personal views.
Written on: 2024-11-15. Last Updated on: 2024-11-24.