How do you define success? Is it having more material possessions than the neighbor? Is it moving up a corporate ladder? Is it having well-balanced children? Is it sustaining a marriage or relationship in a society where more than 50% of all marriages fail?
I don’t know the answer. Lately I have thought success has eluded me. In reality the only real success that has eluded me is professional success. I am not doing what I set out to do professionally. If I am honest with myself, I am my own worst enemy. I do not have the ability to keep my mouth shut, play political games or hurt others for my gain and I have been left me in the background of other people’s professional success.
When I was younger and much more selfish I did have the coldness necessary to climb the corporate ladder, I just don’t have it now. I also have begun to redefine success in my mind. Frankly, a job is a job. The people who you work with and work for have no real interest in you as a person. Not for the long haul. I have a handful of people I would call friends with whom I have shared a job space. Most of the people I worked to impress, tried to please and spent countless hours with are just memories and some of them are not even that.
Success isn’t found a place of employment or in a job title. Success is found in as ease of spirit, in love of family and friends and in reckless abandon.
Maybe I will feel real success when I relax enough to let the desire to be happy override the desire to please all those insignificant people who for a moment seem to rule my life.
