Suffering from Success
When DJ Khaled released this album in 2013, I thought he chose the title to humblebrag. It felt like a cry for attention. I’m suffering from all of this money, jewelry, and access. Poor Khaled.
As I’ve grown a bit in the years since this album dropped, I finally get it. Success is resort filled with landmines. It’s beautiful scenery that photographs well with people all around who are there to cater to your needs, but somehow it still feels empty. Champagne is good, but champagne every day is draining. It sounds better than it is in practice.
Success is also hard because the perception of your life situation changes much faster than you do. People’s expectations of you are much higher, sometimes impossibly so. The weight of expectations combined with the distrust you feel for the people around slowly erodes your faith in others. Contrary to common belief, attention and success don’t really eat away at your confidence, it tears apart something even more important: your relationships. You slowly lose the ability to meaningfully engage with people in ways that do not feel transactional. It is that lack of connection with others that then negatively impacts other areas of your life. Because of this, some end up in a state of paranoia, always looking over their shoulder and only able to sleep through self-medication.
Jay-Z and Nas talk about this same feeling on the American Gangster album (my favorite Jay-Z album btw).
In the song “Success” Jay-Z raps:
I used to give a shit, now I don't give a shit more
Truth be told I had more fun when I was piss-poor
I'm pissed off, and this what success is all about?
A bunch of n****s acting like b****s with big mouths
All this stress, all I got is this big house
Couple of cars, I don't bring half of them shits out
All of this Ace of Spade I drink just to piss out
I mean, I like the taste, could've saved myself 6 hours
Everything in life comes with challenges, even the good things.
You will not be able to avoid these feelings as you begin to achieve more and more of your goals, but you can temper your expectations of what success should feel like.
Just remember that even in paradise, it usually rains every day.