Too many people nowadays value their lives too highly. Success in this world means a lot to many, and they often feel depressed when they fail, and most people do. What people do not see is that life is extremely short, and it will be over before you know it. All we are is evolved apes programmed to exist and self-replicate. That is your only true purpose in this world.
People build legacies and legions as a way of providing meaning to their arbitrary, meaningless lives. Scientific communities rejoice in the discoveries of scientists, and they seek to immortalise them. They will all die and nothing will matter in the end.
There are people who live by Bentham’s Principle of Utility, where you are taught to maximise the pleasure/pain ratio, and while this is an acceptable way to live, self-actualisation is a higher, sophisticated pleasure. Life is meaningless but you unvolitionally plunged into existence, so you must survive and take as much pleasure as you can. Fame, fortune, family, legacy, and work are not ends, but a means to an end. Fixating on them means that this world must matter to you, but why should a world with no intrinsic meaning or purpose matter?
Linguistics is a witch with a "B". What you are talking about and what people are fixating on is not "success". Success is the gradual progression towards a worthy idea or work. If you rearrange your ideas about what success is, then life is no longer meaningless. It is as simple as this. "The Eyes" When you rearrange the Letters "They seE" *** I do ofcause agree!