It’s easy to fall into step behind someone else’s vision of success.
The lifting strut of the popular mayor as he chats his way through his kingdom. The long line-up in front of the restaurant where the five-star chef concocts her masterpieces. The buzz. The fame. The crowds. The face on the billboard.
If I’m honest with myself, if I close my eyes and focus on my own vision of success, I see something so different I have to stretch my arms out into empty space to claim it.
I’m not the big-name singer at the front of the stage, belting it out to the waving hands. Or the production company or the agent or even the top-of-the-line guitar. I’m the photograph snapped in the moment a man in the crowd stumbled and a woman passing by dropped her drink to help him. I’m that photo, stared at all night, held in the hands of the woman, 65 years later, the day after the man from the crowd, her husband, died.
I’m not the candy shop or the movie theatre or the big, new mall. I’m the nice lady sitting on a cushion in front of a low table in her overgrown backyard, cutting pictures out of magazines. I’m what a rejected kid from down the street sees as he clears the thicket of bushes at the back of the lot, sits down next to me, and tells me all about it. I lean into his skinny shoulder with my own and hand him a pair of scissors, a magazine, and a chocolate truffle. Or I show him the big wooden box that holds my postcard collection. Mainly, I sit beside him. We sit together. We listen to the birds. That’s all. That’s enough.
I’m not the great, millennial concept that saves humanity from self-destruction. I’m the indentation in an otherwise smooth surface, the dent that fits the pivot point as one person swivels to a new perspective.
I’m a time-release friend. I’m a resting place. I’m the deviance that allows the pivot. Where in the world can I go with these visions of success? I don’t yet know. I only know that I’ll never find out if I start with someone else’s idea of glory.
When you close your eyes, what visions of success do you see?
Related reading: Pep Talk | Grope, Joy Detective, Curious Curators
Flickr photo: Yellow leaved boy, by lepiaf.geo
4 Comments
Thank you Grace!
I feel strongly that the world will be better served if more of us *get* this concept at a younger and younger age.
Thank you for putting it out “there”!
Great article! It came at the right time for me. I recently sat at a company meeting with all the “higher-ups” and was astounded by the level of hypocrisy, fakeness, and bs that I saw. If that was success, I don’t want any part of it!
Particularly when I look back on my own life and think of the incidents that have shaped what I like about myself, it strikes me that small, meaningful moments of attention and truth that others give us have the power to change the course of our lives. Preserved in the amber light of memory, I come back to those instants time and again to review and relearn. That is enough, plenty, glorious success, I think, to offer and to be such a moment for someone.
A time-release friend. I love that thought. A day with Grace is something to be savored slowly, over time. Little snippets come back to me later and I recount them with joy and look forward to being together again.