Debate: What does it mean to be Yourself?

We had our introductory discussion on what is success. From that there seemed to be a consensus that the major drivers of success were the non material things, love, contentment, how you live etc. During that discussion I developed some follow up questions on which we will have discussions/debates:

But before that, the Zoom link will be posted shortly before the event. During the discussion, if you want to raise a point please raise your hand and you will have up to 3 minutes to speak. Once a speaker talks there will be a 5 minute period where anyone can follow up with a counter point, question, or continuing thought along the same line of thought (leave such comments to 1 minute). But do not begin a new train of thought unless you raise your hand. If you find yourself dominating the conversation please relax and give others a chance to join in.

6/4 Discussion: Is being successful a good thing to strive for? (Or is it better to just live and enjoy your life?) We decided that a drive for success is innate like the desire of a salmon to swim upstream to reproduce. Allowing that drive to take on societies version of success is probably wrong, but developing an individual form of success is more nuanced and may be good or bad, depending if you have an adequate understanding of yourself.

6/11/26 week: What is our greatest drive as humans? To optimize our lives
6/18/26 week: What is our view on what success is as a society? Money, Continuation of Society/Species, Community
6/25/26 week: Is success inside or outside us? It is a mix, usually for younger people more outside as you get older more internally driven. But ultimately, if it is determined by happiness and contentment it has to be internal.
This Week: What does it mean to be yourself? Is an individual’s view of success more legitimate than that of the group or vice versa?
How are success, what is good and happiness related?
Is success how you live or what you accomplish while living or both?
(Is there any amount of material things that you can obtain that would guarantee you have lived a successful life?)
How can you go into something knowing you are going to get out of it what you intended?
Which philosophy provides the best path to success: Hedonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, or Aristotelianism?
Can you be 100% in control of your own success?
How can you do the best you can in life?
(Meta best vs. micro best, are these always aligned?)
Can you be successful without spirituality?
Does your success in life only matter if there is some kind of an afterlife?
What role does Love play in success?
Are there lessons we are sent to earth to learn?

This discussion is deliberately open ended, so please don't come on to the meeting and start saying we need to have definitions like what is success etc. That being said I don't mind you saying to me success is blah blah, therefore I think a successful life is so and so. But I want to encourage different perspectives.

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