Since life, as it is sold to us, demands that we buy into a proven system of success, why then, do all of the awesome accomplishments in life always appear to be ultimately based upon a leap of faith?

I don’t think the two exclude each other…
Isn’t that “system of success” advanced through by making those accomplishments that are based on risk or “leaps of faith?” Just because there’s a system of success doesn’t mean it’s prescriptive – it just requires success in some form.

Life doesn’t demand we buy into anything. That’s a conscious decision by the individual.
I think every major success does depend on the individual taking a certain amount of risk. If we just buy in to this amorphous idea of what we think society wants us to be then yes that makes success more difficult to come by. No one became wildly successful by doing the same thing as 90% of their local population.

I don’t really accept the premise of the question.

First, life is not sold to us at all.

Second, life is not sold to us as any particular thing.

Finally, many accomplishments rest on a lot of hard work rather than a leap of faith.

Faulty premise leads to faulty conclusions.

I don’t know where you “bought” your life, but you was cheated. Faith doesn’t have any part in living.

I think the only system of success is that which works for you individually.

What kind of acomplishments are you thinking of…all mine have involved a great deal of hard work and sometimes a little faith… but you look pretty happy…what’s your secret?

Because defining something as an accomplishment is purely arbitrary. It’s a leap of faith on your part to call something you’ve done an accomplishment. If we want, we can buy into the prevailing notion of success, and measure ourselves by our perception of that notion. It’s still a leap of faith to believe anyone else would deep your accomplishment as theirs, too.

Faith in accomplishment is kind of irrelevant, though. It only matters if you have a hope of pleasing someone else. If you give up that hope, then you can do whatever you want, without caring what anyone else thinks.

I feel I have no hope of accomplishing anything I would consider to be an accomplishment. Maybe others would think something I did was an accomplishment, but I can’t imagine that I would ever feel that way. That’s a kind of self-defeating belief, so, since I’m helpless to change it, I ignore it. Thus, accomplishment matters not to me. It’s beside the point. I just do what I do, and try not to judge it.