Defining Success

Do you know of the Fitzgerald Effect? I wouldn't be surprised if you are shaking your head "No" at the very question. It is a little known theory that even I was not aware of until I saw it. The theory gets its name from the great writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote The Great Gatsby and... well, countless other novels you probably never read and Robert Redford did not play the lead role in. However, the theory and its effects have plagued people well before Fitzgerald, but it is Fitzgerald, the writer and person, that is the poster boy of how people become a casualty of failure. Fitzgerald is now one of the most recognizable names in American literature, along the same lines as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. That would by all accounts make him a success, right? Sadly, no.

Fitzgerald's most successful book during his life was an overnight success- This Side of Paradise. At the time of its publication, Fitzgerald was a poor, unknown writer who wrote this novel, based upon his own life, to earn enough money to marry his love, Zelda Sayre. His plan worked, as his book sold over 3,000 copies in three days, making the 22 year old an instant success.  This taste of fame and notoriety would be a fleeting moment for Fitzgerald, as the high life of success would quickly evaporate into a dark spiral of trying to recapture that moment of ultimate accomplishment. It is because of his struggle that the Fitzgerald Effect postulates that people fall victim to the definition and standards of success that society has set forth.

The American Dream has made many a great success, but on the flip side, has become the downfall for many others who become Icarus as they try to soar towards something that is not always obtainable. The America of infancy, the America of Fitzgerald's time, all the way to the America we live in, has been defined by one thing-- Always wanting more. More land, more money, more power, more everything. And in wanting more, we fall into a trap; we become hungrier. But can we always fulfill our cravings? The bar by which we measure our success continues to grow and stretch until we are unable to see what we truly want or really what we truly need. People surround us and tell us that we need more; they tell us not to settle for what we have, but they urge and prod for us to get more because what we have already is just scratching the surface.

With the success of This Side of Paradise Fitzgerald was only "scratching the surface" of his talents and fame. Surely, he should be able to soar higher and obtain more success, as his fans and critics continued to say. He was part of that America where the evolution of a person was defined by their standing in society's hierarchy. He lived in a nice neighborhood in St. Paul and followed his mother's lead in how to mingle with the social elite, so when he was older, he would fit in and grow into that role of success. He knew the elite from his time at Princeton and that his contemporaries' success was already established by their parents and their wealth, even before they set foot upon campus. He knew to marry the girl of his dreams, one that came from a wealthy family that would accept nothing short of a well-to-do husband. He had to become a success himself. And he did.

However, it was obtaining and then subsequently maintaining his newfound wealth that haunted Fitzgerald for the rest of his life. For, it was in those next few years that Fitzgerald wrote his new novels- The Great Gatsby and Tender is The Night- only to be panned by critics, become broke, watch his marriage crumble, and see his once bright career turn as empty as the bottle of bourbon he would stare into on those cold winter nights. Fitzgerald became the living emblem of his tragic hero, Jay Gatsby, in seizing the American Dream of great wealth and notoriety, only to find that for all its pleasure and high standing, The American Dream can crumble and fall, leaving those in its wake to pick up the pieces of a shattered existence.

It wasn't until after his death that Fitzgerald finally received the recognition that he fully deserved. A man whose writing not only captured the "Jazz Era," but also provided a look into his own soul, died thinking of himself as a person that did not live up to his potential. He died broke and with critical success out of his reach; the sun too high for him to reach as he crashed down to the reality of America's ideals. It is in looking at the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald that we should all take note not to fall prey to the expectations and standards of everyone else. Though we live in a world with a tribe or pack mentality, where the values of a few reign down upon us all, it is imperative to set out with our own definition of success- not what those around us claim for it to be. In doing so, we finally escape the pressure of "The American Dream" as the embodiment of success and we can redefine that antiquated idea with a more reasonable, updated notion that can be fully recognized. One that is shaped and molded for each individual and not based upon the history of the past. It should be in each of us that a credible definition of success should not only be created, but defined.

In what would become an ironic lament for Fitzgerald's life, his main character, Amory Blaine ( who was in fact based upon Fitzgerald himself), utters this final line in This Side of Paradise- "I know myself, but that is all." In those seven words, Fitzgerald found the cure to the Fitzgerald Effect- Just Know Yourself.