I've been thinking a lot about success. I don't even know what it means. I don't know when I'll know that I've achieved it, because I can't define it. I've been kicking around a couple of ideas, jokingly, with friends - but the other day, I started wondering why we were kidding around so much, when we could so easily turn our ideas into reality. With a little application, dedication and narcissism (harder to come by than the former two) we could potentially be as "successful" as anyone else out there, if only by our own definition of having given our ideas a shot.
Probably by anyone's standards (particularly in a recession) I've achieved a measure of success - but I don't feel it, or see it. There's always something more I could be doing, and somehow the hardest part is not actually completing the task but finding the motivation - and I don't know why. Why is it so difficult to just get moving and put a couple of ideas in motion? I think it's that the gap between my own definition of my success and the perceived level of success achieved by others is so great that to reach that "other" level seems completely out of the question, and thus causes me to quit before I've started.
I've got to stop thinking that, and just get started. Here's the thing: I don't know where to begin.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
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This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson has carried me through some tough times when I have doubted my personal success. Western ideology is so focused on task accomplishment - this rethinks what the nature of success really is. How about just being a good person and reaching out to help others?? We can all do that......
SUCCESS
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
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