By: Revanche

What is success?

April 20, 2021

My cohort is rapidly rounding the bases to the Big 40. One dear friend expressed his feelings about that rather succinctly: “gross!” which made me laugh but also made me think.

I haven’t pinned down how I feel about it, but it made me think about what would mark this past decade as a success for me personally. It’s getting a little late in the day to do something about it if I’m not aligned with my values, but it could set me up for a great decade in my 40s. I take a look back before I look forward.

My late teens and 20s were almost entirely about survival.

I graduated from college (21), started this blog (23) while working full time at my first job out of college, paid off my parents’ debts, dated PiC for a long time with lots of life ups and downs, got engaged (28, long after I was “supposed” to be married – 25 according to family expectations), squeaked our marriage in under the wire to land that in this decade, and buried my mom who had been chronically ill.

That period was about laying a strong foundation.

My early 30s were building on that foundation.

I took a huge career risk several years ago and so far it has been worth it. We decided to try for a child and had JB before I became considered a “geriatric” mother. We set up our estate plan and trust, I accepted some incredibly hard truths about my family, and then went through the necessary steps of cutting off my dad. I’m so grateful for the friends and chosen family who have loved us in his place. My health had just been the worst for years and last year’s dietary changes brought improvements I never thought were possible. It’s not a cure and doesn’t fix everything but it helped. I started therapy last year and that wrought serious improvements to the fatigue I was struggling with, and helped me survive the first several months of the pandemic PLUS a pregnancy.

I’ve got a couple more years left in my 30s. What do I want to wring out of those years?

I do know part of what I don’t want. I don’t want my sole focus to be the accumulation of assets and resources. I was that person for a long time for survival. I had a serious predisposition to being that person – as a kid, I was the only person I knew who loooooved playing Monopoly.

Now? A large part of my time is spent on working and the accumulation phase but that’s definitely not everything.

So perhaps the best answer to that question is a bigger question: What do I want my legacy to be? Michelle addressed this in her podcast with all the questions I’ve been asking myself. Because this is when we start building that.

At first, I started thinking of small concrete things.

• Build on the health improvements, continuing to tinker with the diet because I’m not yet a pro at feeding myself well or correctly for what my body needs.
• Stay on top of our finances. If we are now 10 years away from enough invested capital to retire, then when I hit 40 I want to be 3-5 years away. Healthcare is a confounding variable here though.
• Find a happy place where I’m on top of the money without worrying about it or using it as a security blanket.
• Heal from the estrangement. Let go of the lingering guilt and unwarranted shame for refusing to continue carrying a burden that shouldn’t have been mine to bear for 20+ years. This one may take a lot more therapy.
• Training Sera to be an actual good dog so I can enjoy her as a family member and not be worried about what else she’s going to do wrong or if she’s going to try to eat that small dog who sounded like it was going to attack her. A big dog should really have a lot more confidence that a tiny dog can’t do them any harm but she’s got traumatic baggage and she’s scared. She’s shown some improvements over the past summer and I am hopeful but we’re a long way from trusting her with new dogs.
• There’s still part of me that wants to have started and grown a thriving business. I’m trying to decide whether that’s truly what I need or if it’s just what I think success looks like. If I were to venture forth into that area: I want to be an ethical employer who pays well, in an entirely remote business so we can employ stay at home parents, people with disabilities, mentor and employ WOC, and most importantly to me, doesn’t require me to talk to people. Possible? I doubt it.

But those are just details… Who do I want to be? What do I want my life to look like?

There’s no easy answer to this.

I want balance in my life. I usually envision it as two feet firmly planted, whether on moving train or a ship, flowing with the motions rather than fighting the waves.

Sometimes it’s the balance of a tightrope walker, tense and shaky, making it one step at a time. Other times it’s more like the equilibrium of a juggler keeping everything moving at the right pace, not dropping any balls but knowing it can happen at any time, especially if someone throws one more plate on the pile.

It’s still a kind of balance, just maybe not the kind I think I need or want.

I’ve got family who thrive on drama. A segment of them can’t see a pit without stirring it and we don’t talk anymore. Another segment thinks you can’t savor the good in life without some lows, and that you have to make big grand splashy gestures if big grand things aren’t happening to you. I’ve never agreed with that. I watch minor dramas like Suits and White Collar with all that excitement and it’s entertaining on screen but it’s also stressful with all the manufactured ups and downs. That’s not the life I seek either.

The big things in my life were never grand. Big almost always came with two helpings of ugly. The good things in my life generally came about quietly, with little to no fanfare, after years of hard work. There were not a lot of splashy people in my life who were restful to be around. Smart, yes. Interesting, yes. Charming, yes.

How do I make space in my life without making it hollow? How do I fill my life with people I care about without becoming overwhelmed? Relationships and community are work for me, it just doesn’t come naturally. That continual tending to grow them over time can be exhausting. Worthwhile certainly but exhausting. (And in the background I always wonder a bit whether or not this will last. That’s also therapy for me to do.)

Years ago, I didn’t let myself dream, or want things that weren’t practical, because I shunned anything that was too like my brother. He was nothing but dreams (and scams) from start to finish. I also didn’t have the kind of freedom (or resources) to dream.

I always wanted to have a vision for the great big limitless future. Even if I couldn’t see how to get there, I wanted to be wealthy because it represented safety and the ability to choose what we want to do rather than being forced to do what we have to.

I used to tell my best friend: “Can you imagine how much I could save if I made six figures??” Now I tell him how I’d spend hundreds of thousands, or millions, how I dream of making things better.

But what about the in-between? What am I doing on the road to tomorrow that makes today worthwhile and enjoyable and meaningful? Big dreams may be fun and reflect my values but they should inform who I want to be right now.

Some things I’ve noticed about myself since starting this post:

• I’m never so annoyed about not being rich(er) as when I find new ways to help at-risk and vulnerable people. We are reasonably financially comfortable but we can’t manage a five figure donation to an organization doing great work like I’ve seen in some fundraisers. I aspire to that, though it’s quite unlikely we’ll be that kind of rich.
• Related to that, some part of my self pride will always touch on what I do with money. Making it, managing it, spending it. How much, I don’t know, but I do know that …
• During my leave, I felt zero urge or desire to return to work. Quitting right now isn’t an option, unfortunately. Even if I could negotiate a severance (out of the question), we still need my income. Anyway, I don’t feel the internal push/pull the same way I did after JB was born. Maybe it was primarily financial anxiety back then and I mistook it for a love of the job. Whatever it was, I finally found that I care more about living my life more than I love working. This timing is inconvenient, we can’t afford for me or us to leave the workforce now. Still, it’s an interesting thing to know.

Thinking in broader strokes, a happy life for us contains…

Quality time: with each other, and alone time!;
Service: helping others;
Joy: appreciating what and who we have, and the world we live in;
Contemplation and presence: being still and being in the moment;
A positive and healthy relationship with my chosen family, which I surely hope includes my children in their adult days.

:: I don’t really have an answer to this yet but it’s good mental fodder. What are your thoughts on success for your life?

Sharing is caring!

Email

Twitter

Pinterest

0