If I can bring joy into the world, if I can get people to stop thinking about their pain for a moment, or the fact the tomorrow morning they’re going to get up and tell their boss off... then I’ll be successful.

McFerrin frames “success” not as fame, money, or critical prestige, but as a momentary, humane effect on listeners. The quote treats music and performance as a kind of emotional respite: art can interrupt cycles of pain, anxiety, and everyday resentment (the impulse to “tell their boss off”) by offering joy and temporary relief. Implicitly, it also argues for empathy as an artistic metric—an entertainer’s value lies in what audiences feel and carry away, even if only for a moment. The emphasis on immediacy (“for a moment,” “tomorrow morning”) highlights how small, present-tense shifts in mood can be meaningful and, in McFerrin’s view, sufficient to justify a life in music.