Hidden stresses in success

There are many measures of success. For example, Logan Pearsall Smith, the English essayist, wrote: "How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?" (quoted in Flesch). Conventional measures of success include the attainment of wealth, position, esteem, favor, or eminence, but these things without an accompanying enforcement of self-esteem cause stress--emotional discomfort or strain. Self-esteem, then, is perhaps the essence of the conscious, pleasurable experiencing of success.