One reason to try to 'make it' is to come to appreciate, by succeeding, that worldly success is not a worthy final goal of human striving. 'Making it' frees one psychologically and allows one to turn one's attention to worthier matters. He who fails is dogged by a sense of failure whereas he who succeeds is in a position to appreciate the ultimate insignificance of both worldly success and worldly failure, not that most of the successful ever do.
Their success traps them. Hence the sad spectacle of the old coot, a good flight of stairs from a major coronary event, scheming and angling for more loot and land when in the end a man needs only — six feet.