Origin: successus — what comes after
success — from Latin successus: a coming-after, a following-upon. From succedere: sub (under/after) + cedere (to go): to go after, to follow upon.
Originally: whatever came next — good or bad. A sequence, not a verdict.
German Erfolg = er- (completion prefix) + folgen (to follow): that which followed when the conditions were right. The German word preserves the processual quality — what emerges from doing.
The shift: from "what comes after" to "achieving the desired result." From sequence to endpoint. From process to verdict.
The endpoint problem
When success means only the endpoint, the process becomes invisible:
- How it was achieved does not appear in the word
- Who was affected along the way does not appear in the word
- Whether the result was actually good does not appear in the word
"Success at any cost" is grammatically coherent in a way that "following-well at any cost" would not be. The compression removed the very dimension — the process — that would allow ethical evaluation.
✦ Restoration
The question is not: did you achieve the result? The question is: what followed from what you did?
What came after — in your life, in your relationships, in the world? That is the original question the word was pointing to. A result achieved at the cost of what matters is not successus in any meaningful sense.
◎ In conversation — ready-to-use sentences
Alltagstaugliche Sätze — direkt verwendbar im Gespräch. Klick zum Kopieren.
- "When success is defined only by the outcome: 'Successus' meant what followed — including consequences you didn't plan for. Those are part of the success story too."
- "When success stories erase the process: What did you do? Over what time? To what effect on others? Those questions are what the original word was asking."
- "When someone defines you by your successes: The word originally described a sequence, not a verdict on a person's worth."