What does 'success' actually mean?

how to be successful
charlie brown

I realize this isn't a particularly original topic for a video, but I guess everything has been done already anyway, so why bother haha.

Much like all my recent videos, I found myself falling down a rabbit hole of old comics. Like Sunday comics, not comic books.

Calvin and Hobbes, Charlie Brown, etc. Most of them, to be honest, are pretty garbage. But there are a few that really stand the test of time.

Of course, Calvin and Hobbes was already talked about by people much more talented than me, and rather than talk about Charlie Brown directly, I thought I would focus on one particular aspect.

Charlie Brown, the character, is supposed to represent failure. Can't kick a football, can't fly a kite, can't talk to the red-haired girl.

This got me thinking: What is success?

Growing up, I thought that having a good job and having good money was successful. And, I guess that was the case for most people.

But, with the internet taking over everyone's lives, now success is based on something completely different.

Having money now makes you the bad guy, in a sense. You need to have tons of followers and retweets, no matter what your real life situation may be.

By all accounts, I should feel successful. Going from homeless to living my current lifestyle took years of hard work.

But, because I have so few subs/followers, it feels like nothing I do matters.

Despite all my life/work experience, none of it has value unless the silent hand of the internet deems me worthy of worth.

It's a very odd feeling.

Anyway, my original mission with these videos was to see how far I could go using only Premiere. And, I think I reached the very edge with my Amy Schumer and Nestly videos.

So, I am embarrassed to say, I finally started learning After Effects, as you can clearly see in this video. I'm not that good yet, but give me a week or two haha.

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★☆★PREVIOUS VIDEOS:

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[alexandermarc]

"Happiness is anyone or anything at all... that's loved by you." -Charlie Brown

[animekitty]

Success for me is producing/completing work that affects at least one persons life positively, and being surrounded by people I love everyday. I feel like that's a goalpost that may never change :)

[mynameisliana]

I’m so glad your Disney videos pulled me in and led me here.

[elkinshiner]

Damn. This video was super philosophical and deep...

[pk]

Man, this video was great. It wasn't confrontational or anything, just a calm neutral stance telling people to take a step back. It's a shame it has such little views. I resonate with this perspective a lot, but far too often I only run into people bashing the idea of success or saying that if you're not chasing success you're an unmotivated lazy piece of crap, with no in between ground. So thank you.

[stevobooze]

I’ve been binging your videos it sucks how your last two videos had so many views but this one doesn’t even crack 10k wth is up with that anyway your great keep doing what your doing dude

[ianaspages]

This video should see more people, what the hell..
Thank you for these words. I needed to hear them

[kickbikable]

I myself do not believe in Happiness. I believe in Joy, Love and Sadness. Happy or being happy is not a thing. When something makes you happy, you are actually feeling joy for that amount of time whatever made you feel happy is going on for, think about like this. Let us say you are 28 years old. You have a wife, some children, some close friends and a job that you enjoy. Now make a timetable for the day were you fit in time to spend time with all of these things/people + sleep. From 00:00 to 0900, you sleep. In this state, you feel neither happiness nor sadness because you are sleeping. You then go to work from nine to five. Now work keeps your mind occupied from thinking about sad things or happy things for that matter. Then you come home from five and play with your children/hang out with family from five until eight. You experience Joy, laughter, Happiness with these people. Then from eight until 11 you play video games with your friends then you have some fun with the wife from 11 until 12 and then you go to bed. Now let us say you lose your job. From nine to five you lose something to keep you occupied, you start feeling sadness. Now let us say your children grow up and move out. Now you lose the joy and love you used to have from five until eight. Now let us say your computer breaks, and since you do not have a job, you cannot buy a new one. You lose the joy you get from playing with friends from eight until 11. Now let us say your Wife leaves you/dies/something bad happens. You then lose the joy and love you got from 11 until 12, and then you go to sleep. Now since you do not feel sadness when sleeping you try to sleep extra every day. However, you cannot sleep forever. Let us say you sleep until 12am. You then have 12 hours a day where you feel no Joy, no Love, and no Happiness. You are sad. Do you see what I mean now? Happiness is not something that exists. It is just joy and love happing rapidly after each other, making you think its lasting forever, but it does not. This is probably be lost in the comments, but just think about this and imagin if you have been living life like this.

[annaboo]

This just might be my favorite videos of Alex’s’s’s’s. (Lol sorry. I’ve watched almost ALL of them! I probably need help.)
In some way…each of them has helped pulled me out of my head. This one though…chefs kiss!! 💯
((Douglas Adams got it))

[Mylifestoriesmaybe]

hey Alex, I heard you story and love your channel. you know, I'm in a big dilemma : I'm Portuguese, and a Christian. I'm pondering of being a Marist brother ( someone who devoted life to God and helping youngsters, most are teachers who work at Marist private schools. the money won by those schools is used to bring free education to places where education is not a thing yet for ex some countries in Africa ).
I am happy and I'd like to follow this life, but there's a ton of stuff I have to get through, mainly being:
- people stereotyping Christians thinking everyone of them is your normal south american ;
- being insulted for not pursuing a relationship and being called a failure when it comes to that.
thing is I don't want money to control my life, nor do I desire to have a relationship for now. Brothers can leave at anytime they desire and the go to college to proceed studies on their area of choice. I do think this is the right way for me but with so much stigma it grinds my gears

[evanrentz]

Thanks for sharing some wisdom on this. It's pretty refreshing to hear original thoughts and ideas once in a while in a culture that bombards us with propaganda and advertising. My personal take on success is that it's sort of a feeling of accomplishment, or maybe happiness that has been earned by effort. For me, I get that feeling of success when I finish what I set out to do, regardless of what the results may be, or when I realize that I've done everything I can to improve something, leaving me a step ahead from where I was yesterday. Many of us, I think, confuse the strife for success with envy. Enjoyed this video and hope to see many more in the future.

[debarghyachattopadhyay]

This video is underrated, needs more likes then again how many people are really searching for truth, they just blindly follow

[sebastianmetzger-jacobs]

Finding diamonds in minecraft is the greatest success

[teganl]

Very interesting video and important to think about too. It is so easy to get wrapped up in someone else's version of success. Thanks for sharing your ideas ( :

[CLOVRZ]

Its so weird watching this video with him not being loud and trashing disney movies 😶

[TechRight]

Great video bud, your video quality is definitely there. Keep up the good work. Your gonna go far on YouTube and be "successful" lol. You had some great points in this video!

[kschiavo]

From all the videos I've seen so far form this channel, this is the first one I "kind of" disagree. Next to the other videos I had NOTHING to add, Alex was spot on and perfect in every little detail. His other videos were "successful", regardless of opinion or "disagreement", but according to logic, reasoning, philosophy.

I think Alex sticks too much with the meaning of success that is more related to "fame". Thus, he makes the parallel with "happinness". Regarding to what the word means, it's incomplete. And it hits home to me. Hard.

Regarding "success" as "a person being successful", the lines really blur. And then you are right: it's only a marketing plot. Media sells the need for people to be successful, terrorize us like in a tyranny for everybody to smile, laugh, and never complain and fight, and calls that "being happy". And that the ultimate "happinness" is to "be successful". And the sign to "be successful" is money and fame.

Then media companies choose successful people according to their political agenda, and gives them success. And that's it.

Some come accross regardless of political agenda. And companies and people, public and humanity HAVE to deal with them. They are successful, alone. Let's say Louie C. K., Pewdiepie, even Elon Musk. Sure Elon Musk bought his way up, but it was not that easy as "buying" anything, as it is for people like... well, we all know the kind of people I mean.

So, "success" is easily faked, because of the enourmous power of media. But success has nothing to do with fame. Fame can come with, even if it comes after the successful person is dead (many examples across history), but not necessarily. But some people are really successful, nonetheless.

Success and being successful is "succeeding" in your journey or objective. Nothing more. There's a right and wrong, when you pick an objective or a path to somewhere. Examples: Joan Rivers and Amy Schumer. Louie C.K. and Dan Cook. (referring to another video of this channel).

The "amount" of success depends on the impact of the picked objective. Louie, Joan Rivers, Pewdiepie, Thomas Edison, they all aimed high. And they became famous, because the world had to deal with them. But let's pick Alex Meyers, and I say: he is successful. He is not famous, but succeeds in criticizing, analyzing and making us think. If he aimed higher than what looks like he aims, well... he is not successful. If he aims to make us think, and make the aesthetic beautiful, reasoning quality, etc, he definitely is succesful.

Fame is only a detail, or a tool, for particular objectives people pick for themselves. Unless you commit to an objective to "be famous", fame will become a distraction, and obstacle to your real goal.

I think it's important for everybody to stop aiming for fame, and starting to aim for success, but THIS success. Achieving your goals. That is what make us happy. THAT other success is bullshit.

[nab-rkob]

I had to read through the "dooblee-doo" below and I'm glad I did. You explained your change in video direction well. I did wonder what happened. I thought your After Effects work with Charles Schultz's Peanuts was intriguing. Visual subject matter matched spoken topic. Artistically, it was at times mesmerizing.

[MsDPgames]

This is Quality Contnet! You edit like a god.

[JCResDoc]

you know i have this written in large writing on card above my bed "what does success look like". it keeps things a little too grounded. this is a gr8 entry. ^^