The Bear Who Didn’t Want to Be More Successful. A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh was published a hundred years ago. The bear hasn’t done much work on himself since. He would still like some honey and someone to wander off with. Preferably not too far from the honey. Today, we would probably worry about him. He isn’t living up to his potential, and he spends his afternoons simply dropping in on friends. He can’t even explain how these visits have helped him grow. The Hundred Acre Wood isn’t perfect, of course. Piglet is anxious, Eeyore is gloomy, and Rabbit likes to tell everyone how things ought to be done. Yet there is room for anyone who isn’t particularly cheerful, brave or useful that day. No one has to sort themselves out before someone will sit beside them. Outside the Hundred Acre Wood, even rest has been given a job: it must help us perform better afterwards. A walk is only truly worthwhile if it adds to our step count. An afternoon that simply feels good is harder to justify. When asked what we did at the weekend, we say “nothing much”, a little apologetically. As though we had been entrusted with two whole days and now couldn’t account for them. By now, we might even ask the bear to give a talk on the secret of a balanced life. Yet in his company, a day might be perfectly all right even if we got no better at anything. We simply ate something nice, laughed, and someone was glad to see us. Pooh probably wouldn’t understand what was still missing from that day.