All of our lives, we have been inundated with visions of “Superwomen.” Those remarkable women who keep immaculately clean houses, whose perfect children are always clean and pressed, who always have a nutritious dinner on the table, regardless to whether they work outside the home or not, whose husbands all love them unconditionally and who even have time to be good neighbors. Good luck with that! When they stopped killing us with the Superwoman, they gave us “Average Woman”, who did none of those things and did not apologize for it. She has attitude for days but still manages a husband who loves her unconditionally; even when the kids are missing, dinner is missing and the house is a mess. I’m still praying for the day they give us, (horns please) “Real Woman.” You know, the one like the rest of us who in this recession, works hard every day (doesn’t matter whether at home or outside), fixes some sort of partially nourishing meal, and keeps a relatively clean home (just don’t open the closets). Our kids get dirty but can usually go into their drawers or the dryer and get clean again, and we have significant others who care about us but are as selfish, caring, lazy and helpful as the men we love can be.
The other definition of success we’re swamped with is based on our media view of successful people. They have great jobs paying ridiculous amounts of money, take extravagant vacations, drive exotic cars and have magnificent homes. In an effort to live like them, we extend ourselves beyond our means, racking up debt buying things we can’t yet afford, effectively making it a pretty sure bet that we’ll never get there. Why? Because we lock ourselves into the consumer slave catch-22 where we’ll have to take jobs we don’t want or like but that we NEED in order to pay for those things we bought which makes us kind of depressed so we resort to retail therapy where we buy things we think will make us feel better that we often can’t afford but that keep us married to those jobs that we don’t want or like but that we NEED in order to pay for those things we bought which makes us kind of depressed so we resort to retail therapy where we buy things we think will make us feel better that we often can’t afford but that keep us married to those jobs that we don’t want or like but that we NEED… I think you get the picture.
This cycle can continue for the rest of our lives OR until we wake up and begin to ask the hard questions. Stuff like, “Seriously? Is this all there is to life?,” “What do I care about?,” “Why am I here?” And we start thinking about the things we REALLY want. Not the outward signs that impress other people, but the true wealth that comes from living your life on your terms; not the way you have to live to survive. The success that brings with it the love and the confidence we need to pursue the things that will bring us true joy and happiness. That bring with it healthy living and good decisions. That bring with it not a desire to please others, but a desire to help others because it’s pleasing for us. For me, that is true success! Going to a job smiling everyday because you love what you do. Having the resources and means to have money in the bank and money in your pocketbook because your hard work is paying off, not because you’re slaving 14 hours a day at some sickening job you hate, or working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. When you begin to redefine success for you, you’ll begin to understand the irony in people laying on their death beds wishing they had spent more time with their families, or vacationing, or just being; but the blessing is that you’ll realize it before it is you lying there wishing.
Figuring it out before “The Incident” is big! Next time, we’ll talk about what to do with your discovery.
Peace- two fingers, one love!
