Success is based on appearance, not reality; I read this in Robert X. Cringley’s Accidental Empires and it was like a cosmic lightning strike to my being. I’ve always struggled with this, because success, so often, does in fact seem to be based on appearance rather than reality. The problem with appearances is that they yield nothing but a vision, a concept, an idea. But what do you do when the veneer of the appearance starts to crack? More work is required to keep up the appearance than to have done the thing that the appearance was created for or explained why it couldn’t be done and/or made other plans to begin with.

Appearance-based “success” that’s based on a tangible, is really what I’m talking about here, and to call this a success without any real tangible being delivered isn’t success at all. Successful relay of a vision, concept or idea, when the outcome is a tangible isn’t a success but rather a snow job dressed up as success. This is logic, though, however, and the human condition, through its very essence nullifies logic. So there it is. I’ve reconciled it, success is how things look not how thing are.

I’ll keep trying for success based on what is rather than the appearance, though…