VOICES Susan Mercandetti
THE THIRD METRIC
HUFFINGTON 06.02.13
MAARTJE VAN CASPEL/ GETTY IMAGES
When Success Isn’t What
You Thought It Would Be
HAVE SUFFERED whiplash over the decades, having changed so sharply my
definition of success. But, if I know
anything, I know that success —
along with life — is sequential.
In my 20s, so consumed with
ambition and possibility, success,
I
to me, meant a salary. It meant not
relying on my cash-strapped parents for help. And, if I just worked
harder than everyone else, I deduced, sheer drive would trump
the Ivy League degrees with which
I competed — an ideal which sometimes had its shortcomings.
Success also meant landing the
“it” job of college dreams. So, in
those two regards, I was success-