How do you rate success? A good salary? A beautiful house? A ‘perfect’ figure? These images and many more are those we see every day and aspire to reach. Success goes hand in hand with happiness, we’re taught that if we’re successful we’ll also be happy.
I went to a school that pushed achievement. Getting 6A’s and 4B’s in my GCSE’s (exams taken aged 16) was seen as average and it was expected that students would want to be doctors, lawyers and other such ‘successful’ careers. While I appreciated the education, I don’t regret that I haven’t followed some high-powered career after school and university.
Currently as a family we’re living on 100% faith support, so no salary as most would define it. The amount that we live on would make the majority of our friends laugh and probably think wasn’t actually possible. So success in the everyday understanding of the world is not likely to be how our lives could be defined.
As a mum of two young children, the daily routines of nappy changes, food, snacks, sleeps, laundry, shopping, cleaning etc ... doesn’t really ooze success either. But I’ve long come to appreciate that this is just for a season and every second counts with my girlies, so to make the most of it and find my own version of ‘success’.
In the first few months after Naomi was born, I considered my day to be a ‘success’ if the washing up from the day had been completed by the time Mark got back from work! Now it’s always my little way to judge whether I’ve had a good day or not ... I can’t remember the last time I failed on that count!
Yesterday I took the girls shopping and it was a success! Not terribly exciting ... but considering we’re in a new town, travelling to a place 20 mins away, along roads that were numbered differently to how they were on the map I was following (just as well I’m good a directions!), that there were no poo explosions from one daughter or panic potty trips (or worse!) for the other and no-one had a major meltdown, me included ... I would definitely say it was a success.
Even more exciting for Abigail were the $1 pink Spongebob Squarepants socks we bought to keep her focused on the task in hand! Thank you Target for combing two of my daughters’ favourite things, the colour pink and Spongebob! She obviously rates success on a whole different level to me!!
A friend of mine recently had her Facebook status as ‘What started out as a quick trip to the shops turned into a stop on the side of the road to pee, which of course gets her clothes all wet. New clothes becomes the first stop to make. Then lunch where more food ends up on the floor ...’! We’ve all been there, it did make me chuckle and all the more relieved when my trip out was fairly straight forward.
How do you define success? For me right now it may all sound a bit dull and boring ... but we’re all happy and having fun, which I consider to be a success and that gives me a buzz I don’t think I would find even if I earned all the money in the world!!
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