It doesn't seem to me, by the contrary. They're describing the harsh reality whether one likes it or not. As it's stated about reality in the Cambridge dictiona

It doesn't seem to me, by the contrary. They're describing the harsh reality whether one likes it or not. As it's stated about reality in the Cambridge dictionary: "the state of things as they are, rather than as they are imagined to be". But it seems a good idea to rethink how we use the word "success", even if it's "success" at the eyes of many. I like the story "The Honest Farmer", retold by Ella Lyman Cabot, I found in "The Moral Compass", pg. 262, edited by William J. Bennett, which introduces the story with this: "The dictionary defines integrity as 'an uncompromising adherence to a moral code' and says the word traces its origins to a Latin term meaning 'untouched'. Here is integrity, untouched and unshaken by altered circumstances."