Sex, drugs, and the long and winding road to happiness

Now that Thanksgiving has passed and my 25th birthday is less than one month away, I've been thinking about where I am in life. Although it may sound ridiculous, the question on my mind these days is "When do you know you've had success?" As I pondered that question, I thought of the Japanese-American poet David Mura. In his memoir, Where the Body Meets Memory, Mura explores the ups and downs of his life in unnerving detail, from rebellious, overachieving high school student to porn-addicted artist to a successful writer and loving husband and father. His experiences caution us against judging when a person has achieved "success." At age 20, Mura was an undistinguished English major at Grinnell College, seemingly headed for neither fame nor infamy. And for most of the next decade, he cheated compulsively on his future wife, frequented bars and adult theaters and fell under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He was kicked out of grad school for amassing seven incompletes. His writing career was going nowhere. By the time he was 30, there could have been no doubt in the minds of Mura's uptight, ultraconservative parents that this wasted intellect was now the shame of the family. But slowly, life began to change. He pulled himself together, faced down his addictions and started therapy. His wife, who had stood by him through his years of decadence, helped them confront his painful behavior. And as his writing won acclaim, Mura became involved in the literary and artistic circles of his native Midwest and the United States. In the introduction to his book, Mura asks, "At what age do you judge whether you've been successful as a parent? In high school, one child may be a star, the other engaged in constant rebellion and hell raising, sneaking drugs, staying out late, skipping school. In college, they reverse roles. Later, divorce, children, a failure in business, can change the whole picture once more." When I first read Mura's memoir in 1997, I didn't fully understand this point, perhaps because I didn't want to. Five years earlier, when I graduated from high school, I had high expectations for the future. I was going to college on a full scholarship and couldn't wait to leave my boring, insular high school and make new friends. In 1997, I had none of Mura's sexual or narcotic addictions, but I was upset. I was disappointed by the culture of academia and wasn't sure why I chose graduate school. I had already lost touch with almost everyone from college and realized I had left Princeton with no lasting friendships. My parents had a tough time getting over the fact that I had abandoned science, and our relationship was strained. For me and many other privileged Americans who grew up with warped notions of "success," it often seems that family and society judge personal worth based solely on scholastic awards, professional degrees and starting salaries. By those standards, I was an overachiever at 16 and a has-been at 21, and that was depressing. When success is defined so narrowly, it's inevitable that most folks will feel like failures. And no human, especially someone that young, deserves that. Mura's case reminds us that success can't be measured when you're 30 or 40. It makes no sense to judge the value of your life when you're only 21. Today, I have a much better idea of what I'm doing and why I'm alive. I'm still not the happiest man on earth, but I enjoy what I study, I've rekindled my activism through writing and I've built up a network of friends at Penn and in West Philadelphia. Now, when I glance at the class notes in Princeton's alumni magazine, I wonder about my old friends, whom I secretly admired for their comfortable, conformist lifestyles and wedding announcements not too long ago. Many of them sure seem successful. But are they happy -- even as imperfectly happy as I am? As I once heard, "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." If that's true, then the answer to my question -- "When do you know you've achieved success?" -- is simple. David Mura seems content with who he is and what he's accomplished in his nearly 50 years. Although I'm only half his age, I imagine that I just might be able to say the same when I'm older. Because after all, maybe the only true success is the happiness that comes with knowing you've lived the way you wanted.

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