Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Success

Tonight, Vic and I were talking about how we measure success, and understandably, as we are not conjoined and share the same digestive system and heart, our measurements are about as different as metric and imperial. For some reason I negatively prefaced my idea of success with something along the lines of 'I may be a massive underachiever but...'and having reflected on this conversation 20 minutes later, it really bothered me that I did this because I am not one of those down on myself people.

But let's have a moment to psych me out. My idea and measurement of success has only recently taken a solid form. I spent a majority of my life comparing myself and the stage of life I was at to that of my sisters. Wrong, so wrong. I am not them and that's ok. So I had to change my definition of success. It has become clear since coming here that all I really want is to be happy, everyday, and if I am good at that, then I'm successful. But that seems a bit lame-o and to be honest, maybe happiness is not the end of my measuring tape (cms of course).

The problem is, I really like stuff in general. I really like doing a lot of things. I'd even go as far to say I love a lot of things. Take writing for instance, I love doing it. But then I don't do enough of it. I have a very short term memory, so while I really love doing things at the time, I completely forget that feeling and move onto something else and get pre occupied with that. I also love cooking but I do it in spurts. I love taking photos and most days I'll walk past things and mentally take a picture of it in my head, but I never carry my camera around. I also love doing bedroom art projects. I love going out for breakfast. I love reading. I love going to dance classes. I love random projects like deciding to write letters to people. But then I just stop. I can't stick to things and put my heart and soul into it. I can't dedicate my life to this one thing that I am passionate about and that bothers me. Almost everyone I know has some kind of thing they really strive for. Whether it's to be a mother, a writer, an artist, a successful business person or even someone who builds an amazing bridge, they have this thing that drives them. I want that. I want it for more than a project or two weeks of dance classes or a phase of making muesli.

You can't force these things and maybe I'll never find that one true passion to focus on. Or perhaps I've just summed up my love of stuff into 'happiness'. I once asked someone if I could put 'faffing' under my list of hobbies in my resume. Maybe it represents me perfectly but then again, it just doesn't seem enough.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Mate I think you have the right idea.

Life should simply be about being happy. Some people find happy by focusing on a specific, some like yourself just live in the moment and I think that's MUCH healthier.

Besides you DO have a passion.

Poo.

:-)

vic said...

http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html