What does success without fulfillment to you mean?

Nothing.
Success for me is defined only in terms of the satisfaction.

@Khajuria9 Did you have times where you thought your success would, but did not?

There is no success with feeling fulfilled, IMO.

Oxymoronic

My definition of success is itself dependent upon satisfaction. If I am not satisfied, I never feel I succeeded. That is recursive.

Slightly off topic. But I feel that part of the issue with college now a days. It seems to be forced down everyone’s throat to do this or that.

Said person goes and does, only in the end never doing it for the right reasons. I think on the surface left with I am successful person. Look at me with a degree and such, yet it is dull, and not fulfilling.

You see we all got what I call a life trap, a gene deep certainty that things will be different… that you’ll move to another city and meet the people that’ll be the friends for the rest of your life… that you’ll fall in love and be fulfilled… fucking fulfillment… and closure whatever the fuck those two fuckin’ empty jars to hold this shit storm. Nothing’s ever fulfilled, not until the very end. and closure. Nothing is ever over. -True Detective

To me it means paying the bills, security and hopefully a financed retirement. Unfulfilling jobs are why there is Happy Hour and weekends.

Q1. In my book, that would be the definition of unsuccessful.
Q2. No.
Q3. Change to something more fulfilling.
Q4. Yes. I changed the way I lived and went into a different branch of my profession.

@Crazydawg True, rewarding yourself for the work you have done is always good idea. But at some moment isn’t it just an escape from the real situation? Possible you are just denying your real feelings?

On the other hand people can be contempt and happy with that as well.

Yeah, interesting question. To me it all depends on how you define success. I don’t really view success as an absolute concept, like if you said that success is being financially stable, or something like that. I think everyone defines their own success, and people will define their own personal success as things that would be fulfilling to them.

I guess if I were in the situation where an outside observer would consider me successful, but I don’t feel successful in terms of my own personal goals for myself and my life, hopefully that’d be a wake up call to make a life change. I say hopefully because obviously such things are easier said than done. It could be easier to stick in a safe career path that’s bringing in enough money to keep me comfortable than to take the risk with changing. But I hope I’ll always be able to put fulfillment first.

I can see this potentially happening to me a lot down the road; I’m nearly done with my degree and I chose my major not on passion but on safety, if I’m being honest with myself. I need job security because I need health insurance because my body has been cruel to me. Computer science isn’t my life passion, but it will certainly make me employable. There are a lot of other things I am interested in doing with my life, and I hope I’ll have the courage to do them when the time comes.

I moved on to find another job. Jumped from banking into education. I found that much more fulfilling and was happier. A lot poorer though.

My Ex was very successful in his profession financially and in terms of performance but he was never happy at it.

Only when I cheat.

@LDRSHIP The way I see it is 40 hours a week is a small price to pay to then choose how I spend the other 128 hours of that week with my wife and kids. I work hard and enjoy my free time harder.

It means nothing.
If your not fulfilled there’s nothing you gained from that success. A sense of satisfaction is all that matters.
Yes there have been times when I was successful but I wasn’t content. It’s like your celebrating for a “dream”..you really didn’t get anything from it.

When I was working in my previous job, I was richer, had a peer group and a stable career path, but I was not having fun. Now I have moved on to a more field based career (less money, limited social life), it’s still not what I had dreamt it would be, but my dreams make more sense now. Remember Andy’s words: ”Get busy dying or get busy living!”