The impossible promise of “making it”

Land your dream job by 25. Buy a house at 30. Earn enough money to put your bills on autopay and still have enough left over to save. Somehow find time to run a few marathons while also maintaining a tight-knit group of friends. According to some, these are the markers of a good life, a sign that you’ve “made it,” that elusive goal signifying maturity and success.
For decades, even as the economic landscape has drastically shifted, traditional milestones of happiness and adulthood remained. Societal norms still stress the importance of graduating from college, living independently, getting a full-time job, achieving financial independence, getting married, and starting a family. “Often in that order,” says Elizabeth Culatta, an associate professor of sociology at Augusta University.
A 2017 Stanford Center on Longevity survey found that boomers, Gen X, and millennials alike hoped to fulfill these major life events in their 20s. Fail to align with this deeply-rooted narrative of success, perhaps reinforced by generations prior, and you’re bound to feel like you’re falling behind. One of Culatta’s studies found that when young people don’t meet these perceived expectations, they’re prone to depression and anxiety.
These benchmarks, however, are no longer attainable — or desirable – for vast swaths of people. A Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data found that young adults are less likely to have a full-time job, be financially independent, live on their own, get married, and have a child compared to the young adults of the 1980s. Growing shares of adults no longer expect to have children or own a home, either by choice or due to the prohibitive cost of raising kids and homeownership. And even if they do reach particular goals, the feeling of accomplishment never lasts.
These days, young people are slowly redefining what success looks like for themselves. “Making it” hinges more on self-reliance than specific roles like parent, homeowner, or CEO, says Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a senior research scholar at Clark University.
In decades studying adults in their 20s, Arnett found most study participants now consider the hallmarks of adulthood to be personal responsibility, making their own decisions, and becoming financially independent. They also value working in a job they find personally fulfilling compared to previous generations, Arnett says. “They’re all about making a life for yourself and becoming an independent person,” he says. “It’s only then that you think about taking on these other roles, especially marriage and parenthood.” At the same time, our social media-dominated culture makes comparing yourself to idealized versions of strangers’ lives easier than ever.
Considering the shifting picture of success, “making it” just may be a fallacy — an impossible dream rife with comparison and disappointment along the way.
In the years predating the internet, people were fairly limited in who they compared themselves to. We took our social cues from those in our immediate circle: friends, family, classmates, coworkers, neighbors.
Since the advent of social media, we now have the ability to weigh our lives and successes against anyone with an Instagram account. From hustle bros preaching the gospel of passive income and the “high earners, not rich yet” set — people whose high salaries just barely keep up with their expenses and lifestyle — to luxury vacation vlogs and high-end home renovation before and afters, much of the content online is explicitly about making it, about living a life full of effortless ease and affluence. This contributes to a sense that only we are falling behind and everyone else has their lives in order, Culatta says.
“We often open up TikTok or Instagram or Twitter and we are bombarded with these messages emphasizing materialistic goals: You’ve got to look a certain way, or you’ve got to earn a certain amount of money, or you’ve got to go on these particular holidays and get these photos,” says Edward Noon, a senior lecturer in children, young people, and families at Leeds Trinity University. “It’s very easy to internalize [that] these are the ideals that somebody my age should adhere to, should achieve. We need to be mindful that actually not all of these goals and ambitions are as conducive to wellbeing.” Indeed, research shows that people who believe more money or expensive possessions will make them happy — often touted on social media as the cornerstone of a good life — actually have poorer wellbeing.
What’s more is we’re no longer comparing ourselves to ordinary peers, but a highly curated and manipulated version of someone who may have different advantages than we do. Aspiring to live similarly to influencers who are gifted products and trips may strain your finances and cause unnecessary stress. “One of the problems with this concept of ‘making it’ is that the standards are far beyond what is even required for human health and happiness,” says Daryl Van Tongeren, a professor of psychology at Hope College. “In fact, when we pursue these standards, they undermine human health and happiness.”
The animalistic desire fueling the urge to measure ourselves against strangers online is social comparison. Usually, people make two types of social comparisons, Van Tongeren says: upward, toward the people we perceive to be better off than us, and downward, to the people we think we’re more successful than. Looking up to those with more prestige, power, or wealth can inspire us to strive, but when the gap between us and the other person is too great, “that can feel threatening to us,” Van Tongeren says.
Social comparison isn’t always a bad thing, Noon says. It may in fact be an inborn trait we can’t turn off. How else would we know whether we’re funny or ambitious without an external benchmark? But we get into trouble when we compare ourselves to unrealistic standards or assume others’ goals as our own.
“We have to squelch that ‘have to’ idea,” says Kennon Sheldon, a curator’s distinguished professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri. Instead of thinking you should read 50 books a year because a friend you admire is doing the same, ask yourself whether that’s something you really want to do, Sheldon says. What might you want to do instead?
Despite the simplicity of the question, it’s often difficult to parse what we truly desire or how to get there. We might know that we hate our job, are unfulfilled by our relationships or generally feel adrift, but can’t see a path toward happiness. Giving yourself permission to think about what you actually want starts the thought process, Sheldon says. Don’t expect any overnight epiphanies, Sheldon says, but if you’re on the lookout for people and activities that light your fire, you can take baby steps in that direction.
One of the more powerful forces preventing us from feeling like we’ve “made it” is the ability to acclimate to both great and not-so-great events, a concept known as hedonic adaptation. Even if you check off every item on a laundry list of goals, the euphoria and bliss will subside and you’ll inevitably want for more — again.
Without this perpetual shifting of the goalposts, we might lack motivation, says Heather Lench, a professor in the department of psychological and brian sciences at Texas A&M University. “People might pursue graduating college because they think that they’ll be happy when they graduate, that they’ll feel accomplished, that they’ll have better chances afterward,” she says. “Just like everything else, when they graduate, they’ll very quickly adapt to the new job, they’ll get used to the new income. They’re not going to be in a constant state of happiness when they graduate, but the forecasting that they’re going to be happy when they graduate gives people the motivation to pursue that goal.”
People are accurate at predicting generally how certain events will make them feel, whether it’s getting married or a root canal, “but the research shows that it’s just not as good or bad as you thought that it would be,” Lench says. Landing that work promotion might not make you happy forever, even if you expected it would. You might even feel disappointed the achievement didn’t lead to lasting happiness.
Tal Ben-Shahar, the founder of the Happiness Studies Academy and a professor at Centenary University, refers to this illusion that once you’ve reached a particular milestone you’ll have “made it” — and the ensuing disillusionment at the realization — as the arrival fallacy. “Many people essentially design their lives based on the belief that it’s a particular achievement that will lead to lasting happiness,” he says, “and then it’s not just a mild disappointment. Their whole worldview is basically negated and undermined.”
Rather than focus solely on the outcome, Ben-Shahar says to focus on the journey. Set personally meaningful, ambitious goals and allow that goal to shape your everyday experiences. For example, if your dream is to write a book, he says, try to stay present during your daily bouts of writing, to appreciate the incremental efforts that will accumulate to your grand achievement. “In that effect, the goal, the objective, becomes a means towards an end, rather than the end in itself,” Ben-Shahar says.
“Making it” isn’t a singular moment or threshold to cross. Life events, big and small, have less impact on our overall happiness than we would expect, Lench says we shouldn’t neglect our relationships or health while in pursuit of our dream job. Daily habits have more of an impact on happiness than single events, she says.
Similarly, Van Tongeren says we should strive to spend our time meaningfully — to find relationships and pursuits where you matter and add value. Invest in being a good person to those in your life over materialistic displays of achievement, he says. “You can be a good friend and it’s going to be so much more lasting than that Porsche,” he says. “Because eventually that Porsche isn’t good enough because it’s dated, or someone else has a better car, or the return on that is going to be diminished, but your return on your friendship won’t be.”
In addition to cultivating deep, meaningful relationships and caring for your physical health, Ben-Shahar says to pursue ordinary tasks that imbue your life with purpose— something that makes a difference in the world. Cultivating purpose in life is an ongoing process and isn’t a one-time, achievable event. Instead, focus on acts that align with your values, interests, and talents.
All of this is an active process that requires introspection — not passively looking to others for a sign of what “making it” should be. Indeed, checking obligatory boxes may not bring as much fulfillment as zeroing in on who you are and what you want. Whether that’s rebelling against previous generations’ benchmarks for adulthood or idealized moments on social media, people today have the power to redefine what it means to live a good life.
“We should shift ‘making it’ from status to meaning,” Van Tongeren says. “Have I made a meaningful difference? Am I a good person? Have I improved the lives of those around me? That’s what it should mean to make it — not how much money we make or the status that we hold.”