We should continue with the idea that ordinary life can have meaning

"Of course, the fact that these characters are tormented by the failure to meet their own ever-shifting criteria for success does not mean that striving for success cannot be the meaning of life. We have, after all, distinguished between success and happiness. Could not our purpose in life be to succeed, to aspire to do better, even though this makes us unhappy? The problem is not that such an approach makes us unhappy, it is that it is self-defeating. If success is a shifting standard, always being set a little higher than where one currently is, then by definition it can never be achieved. The most we could allow is that a few geniuses have had meaningful lives, since they have achieved unqualified success. To say there can be no meaning of life for anyone but these geniuses seems to be to confuse the meaning of exceptional life with the meaning of ordinary life.We should continue with the idea that ordinary life can have meaning unless we have very strong grounds to suppose it cannot."