What do you call success? Millions of pounds/dollars/insert-currency-here? A sports car? A mansion? Fame and fortune?
Welp, f**k that!
No. I mean it.
You can take your f**king drafty mansions and your privacy-violating levels of fame, and stick them where the ever-loving sun is hesitant to shine.*
*I haven't even had coffee. I don't even. Just go with it.
Let's change tack: think of someone you love very, very, much - a close friend or family member that you are devoted to.
Unless you live a very privileged life -
(in which case, I love you and would like to add that I have nothing against sports cars and mansions - as long as you share them with me 😇 )
- the chances are that the person you're thinking of isn't rich.
Keeping that person in your heads, let me ask you this: would you ever dream of calling that person a failure?
Maybe you would. I don't know, I'm not in your thoughts.* But chances are, you wouldn't.
So why, if they don't have the things we think of when we think of 'success,' are they not failures?
*Trust me, you'd notice!
Could it be because we've got success all wrong?
Could it be that success and failure aren't as simple as who has the big promotion or the fancy swimming-pool?
Could it be that there's no arbitrary list of things - degree, marriage, kids, promotion, a certain salary by a certain age - that defines whether you're a success?
Because those things only matter if they're things you want.
If they're not? Dude, stop marking yourself against them.
If they are? Fab. You'll probably get there some day. You'll enjoy it a lot more if you make the most of what you have 'til you do.
There are other ways to be a success.
Because we're not all going to be famous or rich. We're not all going to be married, or have our marriages last if we are.
We're not all gonna have kids, or a degree. Some of us will never land the dream job, or the promotion we want.
None of that stuff makes you either a success or a failure.
We're expected to aspire to a ridiculous ideal, which isn't even a guarantee of happiness when you get there.
You know what? No-one needs an excuse to NOT do what society seems to think we should.
F**k them. Snatch happiness where you can.
I'm still alive. I'm still going. I'm still chasing down happiness and gripping with both hands when I'm able to (which isn't exactly easy with depression/anxiety!)
That's success. And I'm damn proud of it!
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YOU TELL 'EM CEE!
ReplyDeleteHaha, THANK YOU EM! XD
DeleteSO TRUE! I love this post so much. In my head, I applied it to blogging-world "success." Millions of comments, free books, literary agent. Whatever. And, like, for whatever reason, no one talks about people with mental illness as successes. That's messed up. (Don't mind me, I am hungry. I want pasta. Hmm).
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that you can apply it to blogging! Blogger envy is everywhere.
DeleteAnd YES people with mental health problems are successes just by freaking being here!!!!
(And there's nothing wrong with wanting pasta!)