For all we Americans love the idea of success, we have a terribly hard time recognizing it when we see it in the wild, don’t we?

Part of our problem, as Americans, is our national predisposition to portray success as anything with a dollar sign ahead of it. Back in the last century, the philosopher William James criticized his fellow Americans for that very thing. In a letter to H.G. Wells, the science–fiction novelist, James complained about “The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the … goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.”